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Nielsen Will Measure TV ratings Among DVR Users
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."
Nielsen cheerfully tells you what shows are watched, but won't tell you whether the audience kept the commercials on, or whether they muted them, skipped forward, or changed channels for 3 minutes.
Actually reporting what commercials are viewed to completion with sound-on would radically change televsion programming and advertising.
Remain calm! All is well!
Please, if you have a chance to sign up for these services, do so. And watch decent television. The sooner we can get the Reality TV craze off the air the better.
Reality television and the rest of the dreck suddenly makes a lot more sense if we're surveying people who are willing to spend the time writing down everything they watch for $5 a week.
I thought they used special boxes... I guess that only worked when the television landscape was more uniform.
I always wondered what time warners' cable boxes were capable of sending back to TW. Does anyone know if they do any accounting of what's watched?
I don't see why TW would have to limit itself to DVR either, surely all digital boxes are capable.
Go ahead, sell accounting of my viewing habits--it's one of the few circumstances I welcome it. TW Prices here in WI are just beyond rediculous, it would be nice to get back to being just short of it. =P