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."

Comments

Torrents?

[Laivincolmo]

I wonder if they'll ever start surveying torrent downloaders of tv shows... :)

Re:Torrents?

[MikeBabcock]

I downloaded all the episodes of Alias seasons 1, 2 and 3. I plan to do so for 4 when it comes out as well. Why? Because some kind person makes HDTV versions available -- which are higher quality than the DVDs I bought of the same, and I don't own an HDTV TV; I watch them on my computer.

Yes, I bought the DVDs -- why? Because I want to give them a few bucks toward the next season. Vote with your wallet.

Already signed up.

[Anonymous Coward]

My DirecTiVo asked me awhile ago if I wanted to participate. I don't mind sharing data on what TV I watch, and if it will report it automatically to help the shows I do enjoy be renewed and stay on the air, I think it's great. I've also done a radio diary once, it was a pain to keep track of. This will make the process a lot easier.

Maybe some good shows will be saved

[sdo1]

I had regularly TiVo'd the live-action version of "The Tick". When it was canceled, I remembered reading news articles about the time it was on and how that killed it in the ratings. And I, a TiVo user, had absolutely NO CLUE when it was actually broadcast. None. All I knew was sometime during the week a new episode showed up on the Now Playing list, so when I had a bit of spare time, I watched it.

It's good that they're taking this step. Maybe some otherwise decent shows will show higher ratings now.

-S

Effect of broadcast flag deployment?

[G4from128k]

As a veteran time-shifter, I can only hope (but not hold my breath) that this service might convince broadcasters not to set aggressive limits on shifted viewing of "prime-time" shows. Once the media moguls understand that many viewers don't live life in 30-minute slots, they may be less likely to prevent time-shifting. On the other hand, I tend to time shift by weeks or months and I could see broadcasters setting the system to limit viewing to when 99% of viewers are watching with recording expiry times of only a few days.

Perhaps its time to stockup on pre-broadcast flag equipment.

Who needs ratings?

[ScrewMaster]

They should immediately cancel the few solidly-written, well-produced, well-acted shows currently on the air, continue producing thousands more hours of video dreck, those vacuous "series" that are as indistinguishable from each other as they are from white noise, and save themselves the worry about "ratings". It's what they really want to do anyways: TV executives seem continually surprised when people actually watch a quality production. It was predicted that Star Trek: The Next Generation would be too "highbrow" for the American audience and would fail miserably (this from some of the folks at Paramount, no less.) I mean, good heavens, a Shakespearean actor in the lead role? That it became a true hit series just blew them away, and that it was a hit among people of all walks of life, not just technojocks, nerds, and old-line Trekkies like me was especially shocking to them.

I mean ... what was the whole point of denaturing the education system in this country to the point where college graduates can't write in full sentences if not to produce a generation of mindless boobs incapable of appreciating a good literary reference or understand humor any less subtle than a Mack truck. Apparently that effort has failed because we do still appreciate a good show with high production values, on those rare occasions when we see one.

Re:One thing they carefully will NOT measure...

[Saeger]

Two more words: "Video Overlay"

If product placement gets bad enough, you can bet your ass that the DVR's worth having will also have the ability to download dynamic edit files off the net that can overlay/blur/cut-out the annoying branding. It's not THAT hard to do, and only one person or "release group" has to do it in order to make it available to millions.

Suddenly all the annoying "FedEx" boxes in Castaway, for example, become barely noticable "Acme" refs, saving you from being mentally engineered like consumer cattle.

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