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Nielsen Will Measure TV ratings Among DVR Users

Posted by timothy on from the watching-you-watching-britney dept.

prostoalex writes "TV ratings publisher Nielsen is one company that got affected by the digital video recorder boom. With 7 million households recording TV shows and watching them on their own schedules, the concept of primetime changes, and the audience reporting is becoming skewed. So now Nielsen is launching a special program for DVR households, which would allow advertisers and TV executives to track the popularity of TV programs. Nielsen plans to distribute paper diaries among the households that use digital video recorder. Last time I did a Nielsen TV rating diary, they paid $5 a week."

2 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Their Data will be Mythical - or will it? by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of course they are only likely to get information from people they can easily find, such as Tivo Customers and Sat TV companies who supply boxes with recording cabpabilities.

    They will totally miss those using Mythtv ( http://www.mythtv.org/ ) or Freevo ( http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ ) or any other home brew solution.

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  2. No paper diary required for DirecTiVo by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nielsen plans to distribute paper diaries among the households that use digital video recorder.

    I got a call from the Nielsen survey guy this morning (who in hell calls at 9:07 on a Saturday morning?) asking if we wanted to take part in the DVR survey. He specifically told me that with the DirecTivo, other than signing the permission for them to monitor the shows I watched/recorded, we wouldn't have to do anything.

    With luck, this will result in better data than last time. Last year we were asked to fill out a paper diary, but my wife was hogging the television all week watching the baseball playoffs, so that skewed the results.