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I've had a DVR for a number of years now (first from Time Warner, now Tivo), and I have to tell you, they make it completely irrelevant what time or day a show is on. When my son was growing up he didn't even know when his shows were on: to him, when it was time for SpongeBob or Power Rangers, they were always just there.

While I understand not everyone has a DVR, when people say they don't watch Conan O'Brian or Robot Chicken or SNL or whatever because they can't stay up that late...well, neither can I. But I record(ed) Conan every night and would check it out the next day. Sometimes I'd listen to a monologue while shaving the next morning.

For a long time, that kind of activity was transparent to the networks from a Nielsen perspective, but Nielsen is finally tracking DVR usage, and its making a difference, i.e. Nielsen Reports DVR Playback Is Adding To TV Viewing Levels. My family is watching Dollhouse, but have never watched it on Friday. On Monday March 9 we watched the episode that aired Friday Feb 7. We still have an episode on the Tivo from Friday March 6. And I know I'm not the only one that's doing that...reports are that viewership went up 30% once time-shifting was factored in.

So while I think that Fox are boneheads because they have canceled and/or otherwise botched a number of my favorite shows (Futurama and especially Firefly), I genuinely don't think that being on a Friday night matters anymore, especially to a possibly more tech-savvy (and likely to DVR or internet time-shift) sci-fi audience.

Everyone is having a knee jerk reaction to this.

Nielsen may have coined the term 'Designated Market Area' and hold a trademark on it (won't go into the lack of logic to that) and certainly 'DMA' (just do a Google on that) is an acronym that represents multiple institutions, chemicals, etc. (if there is a trademark on that somebody in the trademark/patent/copyright office is playing far too much 'Grand Theft Auto' designed by Rockstar North Ltd. and formerly DMA Design).

If they in fact reacted to that 'Nielsen DMA # nnn' (see It's a clean remake) then Nielsen's copyright claim is vexatious and should pay for abusing the DMCA (won't go into the lack of logic that went into it's conception either.)

Wikipedia has not been much clearer and what that '# nnn" refers to is not a 'market area', it is a ranking number that has changed on per city basis each year.

If anything the link to the Excel spreadsheat is the same for any '# nnn' -- http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/nmr_static/docs/2007-2008_DMA_Ranks.xls -- this is public knowledge (it is on Nielsen's site for anyone to see) and where Wikipedia (as a matter of completeness in making a reference) has failed, is not be accurate or consistent in the numbers used -- [just take a look at the spreadsheet and it will become obvious].

As seen in One has been undeleted Wikipedia is fixing citations (taking them off), in fact they are even including Notes retracting their position, ...this absolute madness!

Other than Nielsen?

Yes, they are not equal, however, in today's market, they are congruent.

Have you ever taken a statistics class? Nielsen's sample is hardly "ridiculously small" by any definition of sampling methodologies. From: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.55dc65b4a7d5adff3f65936147a062a0/?vgnextoid=4f5247f8b5264010VgnVCM100000880a260aRCRD

"To comprehend the dimension of our task, let's look at the numbers. We collect information from approximately 25,000 metered households starting at about 3 a.m. each day, process approximately 10 million viewing minutes a day, and make more than 4,000 gigabytes of data available for customer access the next day. In addition, we collect and process data from 1.6 million handwritten paper diaries from households across the country during sweep periods."

Now they're probably counting both the national universe sample and their individual market samples to reach that 25,000 figure, but even so we're talking thousands of homes in any of these sampling frames.

And, what evidence do you have for your claim that their method has "clear flaws that favor certain channels over others?" Do you really think the billions of dollars worth of decisions made throughout the television industry would be based for long on a system that displayed favoritism so blatant that you, an untrained Slashdot reader, could detect it?

There's a reason why Nielsen Media Research has been the gold standard for television decision-makers; it's because they're really good at what they do, and everyone in the media research departments throughout the industry knows that.

There are lots of substantive issues about audience measurement methods and technologies, but sample size is not one of them.

People still cling to the idea that you have to watch a stream in real time. That idea is as quaint as televison = three networks. People mostly watch about 10 to 15 hours of TV a week. Some more, some less. People who watch lots of TV tend to be poorer and have less disposable income.

Elitist and completely untrue. The average US household watches 8 hours of TV per day - that's about five times more than you seem to think. Here's a reference (PDF link).

Moreover, there's nothing "quaint" about watching TV in "real time" (I don't think that's actually what you meant - you meant at the premiere date and time). Even if we moved to a completely internet-only model for television, new content is not going to appear all at once, to be consumed at customers' leisure. It takes time to film each episode of a TV show, and there will continue to be staggered "premieres" of series episodes. Fans of each show will still gather around their computers at the same time each week, just as they do around their TV's now.

People like you are misunderstanding the effects of time-shifting. DVR's are great (I have two of them) but most people are home at 8PM and they're not going to delay watching their favorite TV show that happens to be on at that time simply because they can. DVR owners still watch a hell of a lot of live TV. The point of a DVR is not to enable you not to watch shows that are on while you're watching TV; the point of a DVR is to allow you to watch shows when you otherwise couldn't. You're looking at the entire concept backwards.

There will always be timeshifting and there will always be people who can't watch a premiere and will have to watch later, whether it's on a DVR or online. But there will also always be people who will crowd around their screens - whether it's a TV or a computer screen - to watch a TV show premiere on the date and time that it's first posted. The upshot of that is that there's simply no reason for linear TV networks to go away, meaning - with all the equipment, time, and money already invested (and we're talking tens of billions of dollars here) - they likely never will.

I agree. I haven't watched TV in over 7 years. Mostly because I can't justify paying so much for so very little.

rant:
Also, as you say, you are paying to watch a ton of advertising. The TV watchers don't even see how much they are bombarded by ads every day. If they took a 2 month break from TV, they'd realize that the world keeps on turning and the world doesn't come to an end without TV. They might even *gasp* take back those 4.5 hours of their life per day and do something like exercise, or take the time to cook a healthy meal, rather than pound back another McDonald's cheeseburger and extra large fries and extra large drink.
/rant

This really isn't any different than the Nielsen rating.

Except that they don't pay the Nielsen viewer anything?

Or that the Nielsen, Arbitron, etc. respondent willingly agreed to provide information on their viewing, listening habits?

Or maybe that the folks at Nielsen provide a clear and unambiguous privacy policy"?

... only talks about half of the A2M2 (Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement) initiative. We're big on catchy names at Nielsen. :P

To read up fully on Nielsen's plan for measuring portable media: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/ menuitem.9716da1f5789380e211ba0a347a062a0/?vgnexto id=406ae2b5079bb010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD

Obviously, good ole George read this press release: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/ menuitem.55dc65b4a7d5adff3f65936147a062a0/?vgnexto id=6573d3b8b0c3d010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD
(please ignore the terrible site design...it makes me wanna barf)

Long story short, the TV market grew 1% this year. I don't think this qualifies as "a trend that more people are watching tv than movies." These sorts of statistics do prove a move by consumers from movies to TV?

However, in purely non-scientific terms, I think there is a trend in quality among some TV shows. Witness Battlestar Gallactica, for example. But moving to a different medium won't improve the quality of your product, George.

TiVO already has a partnership with Nielsen (don't not ask me how I know, I am not allowed to say) that tracks specific TiVo user accounts (with their informed consent). Basically, Nielsen is uisng TiVo as a new PeopleMeter to track TV watching habits. The consent agreement is for a one year term.

TiVO already has a partnership with Nielsen (don't not ask me how I know, I am not allowed to say) that tracks specific TiVo user accounts (with their informed consent). Basically, Nielsen is uisng TiVo as a new PeopleMeter to track TV watching habits. The consent agreement is for a one year term.

I seem to remember something about there being a flag in the TV signal that identifies commercials, but my quick search brings up nothing related to that. I did, however, find this nugget on Nielsen's site...

Identifying commercials Although there are many TV programs, there are even more commercials. Keeping track of what commercials are on TV is another service provided by Nielsen Media Research. Using a special passive TV signal identification technology, commercials on TV stations are continuously monitored and converted into a digital "fingerprint". These fingerprints are then compared to a computer file of fingerprints from thousands of different commercials and automatically identified whenever possible (which is about 95% of the time). The other 5% of the time, videotapes of unmatched commercials are sent to a central office to be viewed and properly credited. This information is used to produce reports detailing when and where TV commercials actually aired.

http://www.NielsenMedia.com/WhatRatingsMean

Nielsen make their money conducting market research surveys.

What happens if no audio code is present in the sample home?

Nielsen's patented Nielsen Media Monitor Sites (MMS) collect and store a constant stream of unique audio signatures for each broadcast, cable, and satellite signal received, covering all 210 TV markets. This includes all client PBS stations and client cable origination channels.

If any station's NAVE encoder is inadvertently interrupted, the A/P Meter installed in Nielsen sample homes uses the same patented technology to collect and store passive signatures for all non-encoded programming viewed. These signatures are downloaded each night to Nielsen's operations center. To identify viewing, the passive signatures collected from the A/P meter in the home are matched against the signatures collected by the MMS. This process occurs during the normal overnight data collection.

The passive signature-matching engine in the A/P Meter system is intended as a fail-safe back-up system, to be used when codes are not present in the signal.

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/newsreleases/2004/TiVo %20Agreement.htm

Neilsen already made agreements with Tivo so that they can mine the Tivo viewer data.

I imagine Neilsen would just get CableVision onboard too.

Neilsen does more than just provide raw data, they combine localized viewer data to present a broad national picture. CableVision couldn't really compete with that, since Neilsen is grabbing viewer info from all the cable/broadcast markets in any particular region.

Ontop of that, CableVision wouldn't have Neilsen's years and years fo past data. They'd have nothing to compare their viewer data to. It makes a ton more sense for them to negotiate a deal with Neilsen than to try and get into the ratings game.

Quoted from http://www.nielsenmedia.com/whatratingsmean/. That doesn't sound like voluntary participation to me. And besides, it would be impossible to allow people to choose whether or not they have a Nielsen box installed in their TV/VCR/cable box/satellite dish. Every sci-fi geek would be opting-out ("zomg its Big Brother!") and every American Idol watcher would opt-in ("maybe I can be on the show next season!").

Don't know why the TV producers don't embed their their content with some kind of banner advertising (that's either difficult of not worth the effort of removing) and distribute the content themselves over the net using P2P (like bittorrent). Thus bypassing Tivo, Microsoft, Yahoo and all the others and letting consumers decide how they watch it (big screen, laptop, mobile phone, etc.). Presumably they'd reach a wider audience and make more from advertising.

Of course this would also bypass the current Neilsen rating system and confuse advertisers but I'm sure they could find another method of rating popularity (e.g. number of hits/downloads, etc.).

"What's the number one show on TV?"

CSI.

"What's the second? Lost."

According to Nielsen, the #2 is "Desperate Housewives." "Lost" is #4, behind "Without a Trace."

ACNielsen is the ratings service that advertisers use to gauge how many people watch a particular show. They then go to what is called the upfront market where media buying companies buy commercial space in bulk from channels. The prices set are based on ACNielsen's numbers and the market - it's a bit like an auction. If advertisers do not buy ads for a particular show that covers the costs and the channel it is on is supported by advertising, it goes away and is replaced by a new show that advertisers will buy advertising for so it covers costs.

As to why it is your problem, it means if you don't watch the show in a way ACNielsen tracks it, the show is more likely to go away. It's not about legality - although I think if you live in the U.S., there are a lot of nuances in IP law and I don't know if your particular line of argumentation would work in a court of law - might also depend on your court.

As for your other comments, you don't need to care. However, you should understand that there is a causal relationship between not watching it on TV and the show not lasting. Personally, I don't watch TV, so it doesn't make a difference to me. I'm just pointing out how the system works so you can make choices to your advantage.

In the Slashdot world it works like...
1. Get high Nelson ratings.
2. Charge more for commercials.
3. Profit!

In the Slashdot world there are plenty of Nelson ratings. Mostly it's geeks sitting on couches, pointing at dumb shows on TV and taunting, "Ha-Ha!". I recently Nelsoned Enterprise, for one.

Unfortunately the rest of world isn't so clever and they have to go by Nielsen ratings.

Nielsen answers your question here.

You would have to be a Nielson household to actually affect the Nielson ratings. You can see how Nielson ratings are collected at http://www.nielsenmedia.com/, but according to their site the put a little box in 5,100 randomly selected homes. So unless you have that box, nothing you can do can affect a shows ratings, and thus ad revenue.

So, on the low end you are talking 9 hours of viewing per day, every day of the year for the whole year which is frankly completely unreasonable

Frankly, it's pretty close to typical.

I've never had a DLP-class projector bulb last more than a couple years in daily conference-room use. I am very interested in anybody that's had a bulb actually last for a very long time (especially 11 years). I guess someone running a projector 24x7 could speak to the 6000-hour claimed bulbs. Of course, that's ideal load on a bulb - the heating and cooling cycles are what get you, so 6000 continuous hours isn't anything like 6000 1-hour viewings.

But you're right, I suspect we've got a while to wait for high-power LED projectors, and laser may get there first.

I call bullshit. I've owned a projector for three years now and I am only two thirds of the way through the bulb. And I use it maybe a couple hours every night.

You're not typical. 7.5 hours per day is typical.

Now, if it was used nearly six hours a night, then it the bulb really will need replacement every year.

It's higher according to Nielsen.

Nielsen Media Research asks a bunch of people to write down everything they watched for a week, and a small minority of those get a box that actually keeps track of their down-to-the-minute TV watching behavior. Nielsen takes these results, extrapolates them to the population at large, then gives a little tallied sheet to all the TV stations showing how many more people watch their competitors. Or at least, that's how it always seems to me.

Nielsen's exact methods are detailed at their web site.

Forgot to include sources. HowStuffWorks' blurb on ratings is here and Nielsen's site is here.

Since when is a 7.2 share (that's 7.2% of the entire listening population [I couldn't be bothered to find a more updated number but based on how ratings usually go I doubt it'd be more than 30% higher]) the majority? Being the largest minority does not make you the majority.

It's wonderful how ignorance rewards ignorance on slashdot.

this is akin to hardware "spyware"

Actually it's more like Nielsen, Arbitron, Hooper
and other media ratings services that have been in use since advertising began in radio in the 1920's.

I was an Arbitron participant one year and kept a booklet of all the radio I heard for a week. Shortly after that a TV ratings service asked for the same, and I was glad to send them back a book mostly blank except for a few half-hours watching Nightly Business Report ;))

They do have that information from regular broadcast outlets. Radio stations get rated by Arbitron. http://www.arbitron.com/ TV stations get rated by Nielsen. http://www.nielsenmedia.com/ I have worked in the radio and TV industries, and have participated in Arbitron ratings surveys after I had left the field. You should see the data that the stations get on their audiences! Nothing as to "Jane Smith listened to your station yesterday at 5:50 PM" but it does say "Your station had 5000 male listeners, aged 24-30, between 5 and 6 PM. 2000 male listeners, aged 18-24...."

Newspapers and magazines have distribution data for their subscribers as well. They may or may not have age/gender/income type of info, but they definitely have distribution info which can be compared to census data. "The higher income area of town has a 50% subscription rate of 50,000 copies daily, while the lower income area has 25% saturation at 10,000 copies daily."

That information (whether collected via outside surveys, inside subscription rates, or user registration) is vital to the advertising prices the company can charge. I would not be willing to spend as much for advertising on a radio station that has half the listeners as one that has twice as many in my target audience. It is simple bang-for-the-buck logic.

The reason why advertisers are willing to pay more for TV ads than Internet ads is simple. TV ads are pretty much captive audiences. Tivo and other PVR users excluded, most people will leave the volume up during commercials, hearing the jingle and brand name bombardment even while they go into the kitchen to get a beer. Web site ads either sit quietly in the background being ignored by the vast majority, or they get up front in your face upsetting you. Can you name, without looking, the ad on the top of the page now? How about the one on the previous page?

Another problem with Internet advertisement is the duplication of content. If you want to watch the latest Nerds game, you have to watch it on whatever local channel caries XYZ network. With online content, more than likely another source has it too. As an example, a friend sent me a link to an article on a local TV news station's web page. They require registration, so I went to the website for my local newspaper and grabbed basically the same article written by another reporter, without registration.

I hope this helps shed some light on the subject for you. One of the best forms of advertisement on the net is the viral marketing. Especially when the user has something to gain, besides the content, to give their information. To see an example, click the link in my sig.

Read the article.

They're suggesting frequencies be sold like property. If you're broadcasting between 54Mhz and 216Mhz, and I own that property in the area (VHF TV channels 2-13), I'll sue you, and I'll get a restraining order to get your equipment unplugged or seized.

For the owner of those frequencies, it's a valuable asset. It'd be like owning property on Wall Street, and opening a peep show theater. I could make a whole lot more money selling the space as executive office space.

I don't agree with the idea of abolishing the FCC, but I do feel that they need to be reorganized.

I'd like to buy a 100W transmitter, and do a mix of talk and local group/band/dj music. It's not going to happen though, the FCC is getting too much for their licensing. I'm sure the ASCAP, BMI, etc, etc, would want a substantial cut of my profits too.

In the case of the boob flash at the Superbowl, the sponsors pulling their money hurt them more than the FCC throwing fines around. The sponsors control what gets broadcast way more than the FCC does.

Consider what gets more viewers, Friends, or a local talk show about county government? People are going to watch Friends, rather than hear about zoning changes in the ghetto. The sponsors throw their money to where the viewers are, and broadcasters are going to try to put up more content that is favorable to making more money. More housewives want to watch soaps than sci-fi horror movies. If more people were watching higher channels with their movie reruns during the day, you'd see more movies showing up in the lower channels during the day. Thank you Nielsen.

Even the cable industry knows when to cash in. Sure there's a bit of soft-core porn on at night, but it's available 24/7 on PPV channels, where they can make a real buck.

If getting a 80MW transmitter and broadcasting whatever you want gets you off, do it. You can buy transmitters online from overseas vendors. Right now you worry about the FCC. Without the FCC, you worry about the owners of those frequencies suing the pants off you. I'd worry more about 83 lawsuits, than I would about 1 FCC fine. Don't forget to make sure that porn you're transmitting is licensed for distribution purposes, or you'll be sued by all those porn companies too.

How long before we find out that Time Warner and the rest of the cable companies are collecting viewing data? How long before all networked TV devices are collecting this information?

This is one area where I'm cool with data being collected on me and my habits. In fact I'd like to see better demographic information associated with the viewing data TiVo is collecting. I'd like to see the Neilson ratings go the way of the buggy whip.

Much of the Neilson's data is still collected using a paper and pen. They also employ some more high tech methods but those still require some manual intervention and have produced some questionable results.

If it does, it could be some sort of Nielsen type of rating system. Real gets this info, then sells to advertisers based on who is listening to what. [Ever seen a menopause commercial while watching SpongeBob?] It's not exactly bad, but they should tell users what they are doing.

Then again, most people just click 'I Agree' when the EULA comes up during installations...

They happen to be a run-of-the-mill cable company with a lock on the WashingtonDC-Philadelphia-Newark-NewYorkCity cooridor, the 4th largest TV viewing market in the USA, and 5th largest radio market. They are their own sports broadcast provider (Comcast Sports) with near-exclusive baseball, basketball & hockey coverage for the region (Normally you will only get a game on broadcast TV if the stadium is sold-out, Comcast gets them all the time).

As mentioned before, Comcast is approximately 1.5x the size of Disney, and are essentially a pure content distribution company. Disney under their umbrella would give them additional content to distribute... And think of all the movies that Disney has rights to, suddenly it would make the HBOs and Cinemaxes of the world a lot less powerful if Comcast could bring you Disney/Miramax/BuenaVista movies first. And look at what AOL did with TimeWarner, suddenly you had the Merry Melodies (Bugs Bunny et al) characters as part of their advertising campaigns == instant public mascot recognition. You better believe that Comcast would milk the Disney characters for commercials...

The biggest complaint last year is that ESPN sports content (who have a firm grip on broadcasting college sports nation-wide) was expensive... ESPN is a piece of Disney, so Comcast would own another valuable piece to the sports pie. The college NCAA tournaments in March are a month long advertising spree, and I'm sure Comcast would love to be a middle-man in that system.

Personally, I hate what Eisner has done to the Disney legacy, so anything to remove him from CEO would be a good thing in my opinion. Unfortunatly, a buy-out like this would only contain a Platinum Parachute (this guy already paid himself enough gold) that would make Eisner richer... something he hasn't deserved for a decade.

TiVo isn;'t big enough tp influence the life or death of a show.

I would argue that it is. With 700,000 households, it is 350 times larger than the highly influential Nielsen Media Research sample size. (See http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/)

For reference, the most popular TV show last week was CSI, followed by Monday Night football. CSI got 13 points, Monday Night Football 11 (data here). So though a 2 isn't blockbuster (the lowest scoring show in the top twenty got a 6), it is still impressive. I don't know if farscape can do it.

It's Nielsens you moron.

Believe it or not, last names are not unique. In other words, no, there is no relation between Jakob Nielsen the self-proclaimed web usability expert and Nielsen Research the TV rating people.

Second, participation in the Nielsen TV research program is voluntary. Nothing is collected without the users' knowledge. In fact, you need a special set-top box to participate.

It really throws me for a loop how so very few people determine what TV statins think people are watching.

Nationwide for 2001-2002 they estimate 100+ million homes with televisions.

For nationwide stats they electronically monitor 5000 homes.
For local stats (55 markets) they monitor 20,000+ homes in each market. (approx 1.1 million people)
During sweeps, they ask approx. 1 million people to fill out "diaries" for a week.

IMHO, this does not seem like a remotely accurate system.

The only people that get "factored in" are the Neilsen families:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/ratings.html#How do you figure out the ratings?

Do they pick folks who watch a varying amount of TV per day

No, their sample is random. If they tried to develop different categories to recrute people from, they wouldn't end up with a representative assortment of different households. But because it is random, their sample includes people from all categories (more or less).

How many families are there all together?

about 5000 families, or 13,000 people.

Oh, and you can't sign up.. the whole point is that it is random, and signing up would suddenly make it not random.

see Nielson Media

Why haven't I ever met a "Nielsen family"?

Actually, you may have. There are hundreds of thousands of "Nielsen families", including diary and metered households. We ask our households not to reveal they are in the Nielsen Media Research panel. This protects their privacy and helps ensure the integrity of the panel. In the few cases where homes have revealed their NielsenTV status, we removed them from the metered panels or disregarded their diaries.

"I'll just do such-and-such and yeah, that'll screw 'em!", here's a wake up call.

Are you in one of the 5,000 households with a Neilsen People Meter? Or failing that, are you in the "sweeps"?

No?

Then your opinion means absolutely nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Nobody cares if you switch off your TV and go and frolic in the great outdoors. Nobody that matters will ever know, and nobody will change what they're doing because of your actions.

Are we all clear on that now?

I think a large part of Futurama's problems with Fox(and many of the other shows listed in the discussion above) are a failing in the manner in which the Nielsen ratings are done. How many people on slashdot even KNOW a person who is a nielsen 'household', let alone are a nielsen voter?

Sorry, typo in above link.

Nielsen ratings are based on a couple of things, though the majority of the information comes from set top boxes, which could maybe be construed as a survey, but probably not the kind that you're thinking about. They have some useful information about how they do what they do, along with a little elementary statistical analysis of why their results mean something.

Not like TV is worth watching anyways. I get most of my news off the net, with a grain of salt.

Wow, your ass has alot to say, unfortunately most of it wrong.

Neilson viewer are supposed to only log time actively watching television. They are not supposed to log time for a show if they fall asleep while watching it. The rating box will periodically query the viewer inorder determine that they are still watching.

From the Neilson website: Whenever the television set is turned on a red light flashes from time to time on the meter, reminding viewers to press their assigned button to indicate if they are watching television. Additional buttons on the meter enable guests in a sample home to report when they watch TV by entering their age and gender and pushing a visitor button.

Spelled Neilson wrong. Oops.

Nielsen has used black boxes connected to TVs for many, many years to collect viewing information.

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/wtrrm.html