Slashdot Mirror
Nielsen Ratings in the Age of the Internet
alphadogg writes "If everyone started watching '24' or 'CSI' on video iPods or streamed over the Internet — instead of on TV in their living rooms — these top-rated shows would probably go the way of 'Cop Rock.' This is because Nielsen Media Research cannot collect data about what people watch on handheld video-viewing gadgets or from PCs streaming network TV shows. While Nielsen estimates around 90% of TV viewing still happens in homes, it's this burgeoning 10% that TV networks and advertisers are desperate to delve into." Note that this story is obnoxiously spanning 6 pages. For a publication named "Network World" you'd think they'd know better.
If a show was a huge hit on iTunes, and pulled in poor ratings on TV, do you think the TV studio would really say pull the plug? No. They'd have the metric of the fact the TV show is pulling in a ton of money, and they'd use that as reason to keep the show on.
Look at other shows that have done well on DVD. There are several examples of DVD sales leading to TV returns (so they can then sell more DVDs) and movies.
The advertisers won't have the Nielsen ratings to go by on these shows, but they'll have far more reliable data to tell them how many people are downloading these shows.
Or tv networks? The whole world doesn't revolve around computers you know.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
if everyone watches them on iPods and what not, they'll be paying for them with cash instead of advertising...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When will they start tracking people who watch TV shows after downloading them off BitTorrent? I want my viewership counted too!
*snerk*
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I've talked to a few people who've been involved in Nielsen ratings, and these were hardly normal people. One family basically only ever watched Charmed on TNT, and then an occasional news broadcast. They really need to start pulling more automated information.
In my home, I have Dish Network, with a dual-tuner DVR. So, I often end up watching two shows from the same timeslot. Yeah, I probably skip through commercials, but I doubt they are getting ratings for both shows at the same time.
The other thing with Nielsen is a failure to get really good demographics. I mean, if Nielsen had a clue, they wouldn't have yanked Family Guy and have to bring it back. They always look at numbers for total viewers, instead of demographics and loyalty. Some of the smaller shows that get yanked could actually charge more for better targetted advertising.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
I remember back when adult swim was getting big and they got the highest ratings of any cable channel. I cheered... and then family guy came back on fox.
/.'ers who contributed... becuase I know a lot of you did :)
HURRAH FOR ADULT SWIM'S NEILSON RATINGS!!!! And thanks for all the
It doesn't really matter how you are watching the shows, since the only people who counts are the Nielsen households. So, everybody who isn't a Nielsen household could be downloading the shows and it wouldn't impact the ratings.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Am I the only one who is sick and utterly tired of stupid cop shows where the cops are all suave and have an attitude and go around like they are some hot shit or something. Theres like a million shows like that. Is that really what people want to watch? Police officers with an attitude pulling stuff out of their butt? In real life every police officer that doesn't stand up and denounce marijuana prohibition is just a tool of Harry Anslinger any ways, nothing more than a racist scumbag raping our country for a paycheck. Do they really deserve an attitude like on all the hot cop shows? Screw TV, those shows are retarded.
Why would this be a problem to anyone other than people involved with the Nielsen Media Research firm? Their business model worked for ages, but it's becoming less and less relevant due to the technological environment.
Piracy aside, producers have a pretty good idea how many DVDs they're selling, how many people are hitting up their authorized web streams, and how many digital video purchases are being made over iTunes and whatnot.
I just don't think we are going to be living in an age where the content providers have to pay Nielsen to sell their own statistics back to them for much longer.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Although the information should be easily collected, I wouldn't know about the shows on I-Tunes. If they are not going to reliable post the shows I want to watch (cough where was Battlestar this weekend you frakheads at I-Tunes cough) then the numbers we get from there do not mean anything. This should be viewed more as a call for the services that people like I use instead of television to become as regular and predictable as television shows. Otherwise, it's an inferior product being measured against a useful and timely product - not apples to oranges.
But if you want to collect apples to oranges and compare where digital society is headed, then brave grad student, have at it.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Go to a popular bittorrent site. For TV Series posted, count the number of seeders and leachers. There....that's what people are downloading. If you don't see the latest fox piece of crap out there (When toasters attack), chances are it sucks...can it.
Or go to that place we don't talk about and how what shows are being posted and requested. I don't recall seeing Dancing w/ The Stars on a.b.tv
Yes...this may be somewhat tilted, but then again, so are the mailings, etc... And if Neilsens are anything like Arbitron, I'd probably pitch the thing rather than deal with them.
oh trust me, they'll make up for the 10% and then some. Last I heard, if U add up all the supposed Nielsen stats for certain given times such as primetime television it adds up to way more people than even live in the US. Everyone adds on a little to make it look like more ppl are watching so they can get more money from advertising. And just think how much better TV would be if they used that time and effort to think of something more creative than 25 year old "teenagers" bitching at each other about how dramatic their life is and big city single women bitching about everything and acting like big stereotype machines.
Is it just me or is it not going to upgrade to Vista in here?
While Nielsen estimates around 90% of TV viewing still happens in homes...
WOH WAH WOH vested interest WAH WAAAH.
Note that this story is obnoxiously spanning 6 pages. For a publication named "Network World" you'd think they'd know better.
Note that there is a "Print" link at the bottom of the first page, which gives the whole article on one page (although the resulting URL does not seem useful for a C&P link).
The rest of the analogy is left as an exercise for the reader.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
Interesting the timing of this story, because I received my DirecTV bill yesterday, and see they tacked another $10 on out of the blue. The only time we watch TV is for specific shows (at the moment Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Survivor). We watched the previous 2 seasons of Lost (48 episodes) entirely from downloads off the internet, and we are now watching it "live" since we are caught up with the storyline. So on one hand, had we not been able to download and watch the older shows, we definitely would not be watching the new episodes live. So in that specific case "offline" viewing resulted in an increase in live viewing.
However, considering the cost increase at DirecTV, I'm now seriously considering completely pulling the plug on Satellite / Cable, and just downloading the shows we watch. They are usually available online within an hour or two of airtime. If the shows were available online for purchase, and if they were offered in a format that was conducive to what we want (ie no DRM), we would consider purchasing them. The total cost should still be less than our DirecTV.
Our kids watch more TV than we do, but I still download and burn shows for them to watch. For example, all the Invader Zim episodes, and just in the last few days they've really enjoyed the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons they've only just been introduced to.
So yeah, a change is coming, that's for sure. Right now this type of activity is limited to the more technical minded folks (for example, I download toons in DivX, and re-encode to MPEG1 VCD for the kids to view in the car - a pretty involved multi-step process to get the audio encoded in-synch). However, it won't be much longer until our parents will be doing this too. Recently I was surprised to visit my Aunt and Uncle (typical computer / www type users), to find them involved in an orgy of DVD burning. If they only knew of the availability of content on the net, and were instructed on how to get it to disc, they would certainly join in as well.
The moral is that the networks need to be as unlike the RIAA (and to some extent, the MPAA) as possible and get good (DRM-less), formal online access channels in place to their content ASAP before the general public switches to methods completely outside their control (aka no advertising or Nielsen tracking, etc).
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Of course it spans 6 pages. That way if you like the article - they get 6 ad views. Perfect for them
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
A couple of times in my life, I've participated in radio surveys. They sent me a green booklet, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, with dates and times in (I think) 15-minute increments. I was expected to write down, for any time period, what (if any) radio station I listened to during that time -- at a minimum, either the call sign or station number, but there was room for both plus a description.
"At 8pm I watched Deal or No Deal on TV. At 9pm, I downloaded and watched The Simpsons on my computer. At 9:30pm, I watched Batman on my iPod."
Would this setup not solve the issue of watching shows on non-televisions?
--hymie!
viewing diaries!
Boxes set up in people's homes cost money to make and money to install. It is far cheaper and easier to ask people to keep a simple diary of what they watch and then collect the diaries. I would'nt be surprised if the diaries are kept online now instead of in dead-tree editions in the home.
Hey, there's a great programming project!
Somebody hack Neilson to grab and distort the online diaries. >8^D Maybe we can get Star Trek: Enterprise back on the air. >8^P
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Neilsen ratings, in my impression, are being used to determine advertising, both in terms of pricing and demographics. How does that relate to people who watch shows on their ipod, off of Bittorrent, or on a DVR? We don't watch the commercials anyway. So we're not really part of the demographics. The group that advertisers should be worried about is the people who actually sit down in front of the TV in realtime and watch it the old-fashioned way, which is what Neilsen has been rating all along. Now, that doesn't help the networks see how many people are interested in the show. But, as noted earlier, seeders and leechers on popular BT sites, as well as iPod downloads, DO indicate that, so that's where they should be looking for data, not at the Neilsens. That begs the question, though, what does that mean for the future? There's no way that advertisers can MAKE us watch ads. There will always be a Bittorrent or something like that out there that takes the ads out for us. So, as more and more people stop watching TV the old-fashioned way, does that mean that there will be less shows on TV, just because there's no advertisers willing to market to such a small audience, no matter the show? Seems like a scary idea.
Saying that Nielsen ""cannot collect data" on this is clearly false. Yes, it's true their automated data collection boxes can't get it.
But my household was chosen to be a one-month Nielsen family a couple of months ago, and they sent us a journal in which were asked (and payed) to log each TV show we watched on TV.
We thought this was particularly silly to only ask us to log what TV shows we saw on TV, rather than log every source of video we watched, from going out to the movies, to silly 1-minute clips on YouTube, to Amazon Fishbowl, to bittorrented TV shows, to movies or TV shows on DVD we checked out of the library.
As it happens, we hardly watch any TV, and we had company that week, it was a hot summer week and we don't have air conditioning, and it was summer reruns. We never once turned on the television that week. Although I actually didn't need those qualifiers, it's not uncommon for us not to turn on the TV all week. Most of the TV shows we watch, we watch on our computer on DVD's we get from the library. Which they didn't ask us to write down.
But it would have been just as easy for them if they had. Perhaps they won't get as accurate information if they ask people to keep their own journals instead of logging things automatically. But if they pay people well, and maybe even send out some largely automated electronic devices that allow people easily search for and click on what they watched (when possible), they can certainly still get this data. There was a "commentary" section, in which we got an opportunity to give them a piece of our minds about canceling Firefly.
There was a "commentary" section, in which we told them that most of the video we watch, including TV shows, is not broadcast TV. We also took the opportunity to give them a piece of our minds about canceling Firefly.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
I already watch most of my TV by internet download. The reason however is because cable networks here in Mexico only bring proven-hit series and then, only after about a year. So why should I pay the cable company for outdated content? this way I get to watch content a day after it airs. And here's a hint to tv companies: if you give me the content even with ads, I'll still be watching it.
One continous page:
http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi
We were a Neilsen family for a while and I have no idea how they made sense of the data. Little to no sports, random shows late at night, no reality shows. Basically nothing that was particularly popular or current ( except maybe Letterman).
The 4 main family members (age, sex) were keyed in permanently, but guests had to be entered in when they were over. I always enjoyed keying friends in as 85 year old women, 3 year olds, etc. Of course we'd get sick of it and just leave the TV on a channel and wonder off. I can't imagine what they thought of an 85 year old women watching a Sailor Moon marathon.
Any research on new shows will not have accurate data in todays day and age. Torrents are the reason. For example, the first episode of season 3 of Lost had 70k people (peers+lechers) within 18 hours of being released.
I wish there was a way for these companies to get data from trackers, although that might not still be 100% accurate (dynamic ips), it would still be alot closer.
Pretty much any show that's placed anywhere in primetime is aimed squarely at the 18-44 year old demographic.
Thanks to renting TV-based DVDs, I've watched a number of shows that probably should have lived longer lives; if only the ratings:
SHOWS THAT ARE NO LONGER
Wonderfalls, which was a lot of fun, but probably failed due to it's very unlikeable protagonist.
Freaks and Geeks, which is one of the greatest TV shows I've ever watched, so much so that I bought the DVD set even after watching the entire series via NetFlix; I've never done that before or since.
Undeclared, which was not as good as Freaks and Geeks.
Life as we Know It, which was not as good as Undeclared.
Arrested Development, which was so much more intelligent than the audience, but probably failed by being too self-referential for the wandering lookie-loo.
EXISTING SHOWS THAT I NOW ACTIVELY WATCH
Veronica Mars, and I am addicted thanks to the DVDs.
The Office, which did not thrill me with the pilot, but that's what she said.
I even got my parents hooked on The Office. They loved it when Dwight thought Thursday was Friday.
EXISTING SHOWS I ONLY WATCH VIA BITTORRENT
South Park, which is on too late at night.
Lost, because I'm busy on Wednesdays.
Battlestar Galactica, because I'm busy on Fridays.
My Name is Earl, because I can't be bothered to look up the show time.
EXISTING SHOWS THAT I AM STILL EVALUATING VIA DVD
The 4400, which is kind of boring in the whole "Everyone knows everyone else" kind of but is it still on?
SHOWS PEOPLE KEEP WATCHING BUT SHOULDN'T
Deal or No Deal, which is just plain stupid. I was in the airport last week and The Office was on the TV. I was the only one watching. Then DoND comes on and 10 people STEP OUT OF THE A LINE FROM SOUTHWEST (significant if you fly Southwest), to watch the damn thing. I audibly asked what the attraction was and not one person answered me.
By selling info on what everyone is watching, when, and all those statistics.
Information is the commodity of the internet, it seems.
EXISTING SHOWS I ONLY WATCH VIA BITTORRENT
The Venture Brothers because it is on too late at night on a Sunday.
Yeah, I know it's one more to list, but it's significant because it's such a good show and it's a crime that the Nielsons can't see that I watch it. Not that they could anyway; I don't own a Nielson box.
...I got a call from Nielsen today, and was signed up to do the survey for a week. Weird coincidence. ...I'd also like to point out that I think they give different amounts of money to different people for doing the survey. Anyone want to compare?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 SU CK IT MP AA
Nielsen ratings are worthless anyways. Most CATV systems can collect better and more accurate data themselves from the set top boxes and they are starting to use it for demographics.
Tivo,Replay they both sell their demographics as higher-quality than nielsen data.
Nielsen data was not really relevant anymore when I was still working in advertising.. The sales people used the data from the CATV systems to sell ad's.
Telling a customer that this timeslot or show has X rating is crap compared to telling the customer that XXX,XXX local people were watching the TV channel at X:XXpm when your ad aired.
Nielsen can not give that kind of data.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I still think the majority of their data comes from diaries. I know a family that was using them in 2004 or early 2005.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
It is unaccurate and, as I understand it, everyone in the industry knows it.
Not only do they not measure internet viewing, but they don't measure dorm rooms where hundreds of thousands of college students live, or public viewing like sports bars which are packed full of people watching sports every weekend.
Not being able to measure viewing of downloaded shows isn't an entirely new problem, but just makes an existing problem worse.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
When I was growing up in the 70's and early 80's I regularly got disappointed in television. Not because of crappy programming, per se, but it happened with disturbing regularity that some network would get a new show that really piqued my interest, and I'd get right into the show and then it would be quickly cancelled, often after only half a season. Anyways, it was always on account of "poor ratings", and this happened to me so many times while I was growing up, I've completely lost count... but I'd figure probably between 15 to 20 times in my childhood alone. Anyways, I always figured that maybe there just weren't enough people with my tastes that were hooked up into the ratings system.
Then fast forward a couple of decades to 1999. I have my own family, with 4 kids of my own, so we had a really full house. One day someone came to our door who worked for Nielson, the ratings company. This person told us that our house had been selected to participate in the Nielson ratings and asked me if we'd like to participate.
I felt like I had freakin' won the lottery... I was flooded by memories of all those times I was growing up and having shows that I really liked cancelled due to poor ratings and thought that I'd _finally_ get a chance to have a voice... and my favorite shows would not be cancelled. I was extremely interested in the offer, and after talking with the rest of the family with it to see how they would feel about it, I said yes, we'd agree.
They proceeded to hook up their ratings equipment to every television, vcr, and video switch in the house... and connected that to our phone line. They told us it would collect data, and then use our phone line once every night or so to connect to their computer and inform them of our viewing habits. The system was designed so that it would only try to use our phone when it was not in use, and would automatically terminate if another phone was picked up, so it would not interefere with our regular phone use. The video equipment was fairly straightforward... there was one logging unit per television, which Nielson told us we needed to log into whenever we turned on the TV, regardless of what we were turning the TV on for... be it watching a DVD or video, watching regular television, or anything else that needed the TV, we had to log in. Each of us was assigned a single button on the device and all we had to do to log in was press that one button. To log out, we just neede to press the button again, and everybody would automatically be logged out if the television was turned off. The logging device would automatically examine what channel or input device the television was tuned to, as well as the settings of any external video switches to determine if we were watching television or just watching a movie or doing something else with the TV. It would also, regardless of whether the television was on or not, log what channels the VCR recorded... although it could not assign any particular household members to what the VCR did, so I guess the VCR was assigned a "general" category by their system. We didn't have to worry about it, at any rate.
So... what did we get out of this? Well, not a whole lot... we'd get a cash-back rebate on any new video equipment we purchased, regardless of the price (although the rebate was not much, it was still nice), and of course for me, I had a personal interest in participating in the Nielson ratings system... a chance to _finally_ make a difference in the ratings system, as we were told that each person in our household would represent several thousand actual viewers.
Okay... fast forward a few years again, to 2003. Television is utter tripe. We hardly watch any of it at all, because there's just so little of it that's any good. But then a show comes on UPN that looks intriguing. I watch the premiere, and I am instantly hooked. I tell my family about it and the following week we are all logged into the Nielson system watching the show. Everybody in the household love
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Get with the times with your recording equipment. Instead of a mail-in diary, use those newfangled FAX machines. :)
(it's a joke people).
How could you not list "Firefly"?
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
... only talks about half of the A2M2 (Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement) initiative. We're big on catchy names at Nielsen. :P
/ menuitem.9716da1f5789380e211ba0a347a062a0/?vgnexto id=406ae2b5079bb010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD
To read up fully on Nielsen's plan for measuring portable media: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public
what Ebay is to auctions. Except Ebay actually works most of the time. But they are both 800 pound gorillas in their respective fields, largly because they were successful early on.
how do they come up with ratings for tv shows anyway? isn't my tv a passive receiver? how do they know who's watching what? same question for radio
I couldn't help but notice that you say you actively watch The Office, but only watch My Name Is Earl via BitTorrent because you can't look up the show time. My Name Is Earl is on right before The Office. Thurday at 8pm on NBC is My Name Is Earl followed by The Office.
Because I BOUGHT Firefly, sight unseen based on many, MANY recommendations before I (1) had a Netflix account and (2) saw the movie.
And it was totally worth every penny.
In other news, Justice League Unlimited.
I get home late that day.
10% of us are watching these shows "outside of the home" (I assume they mean on the iPod as opposed to tv)? That number seems ridiculously high to me, does iTunes even have 10% of music sales yet? And even if it's true, iTunes sales are easy as pie to track. This article is crap.
Funny, the last time I was part of the Nielsen ratings, the tracking booklet I was to fill out had instructions for noting media I watched via TVR, handheld, etc. Sure, it's not electronic and automated via a custom cable box, etc, but it still looks to me like that data is tracked just fine.
Why we even need Neilsen ratings at this point (or third party bean counters). Many of us are willing to report waht we watch -at least anonymously - to save our favorite shoes. If a channel like the Sci-fi channel started offering downloads or streams of its shows it will have direct log in formation. As well as iTunes sales etc.
I think the problem here is trying to preserve old methods when when technology allows more direct interaction with the network.
Think of American idol and all the text messages it reads. Couldnt a network just say along with all the other onscreen adverts "text xxx to this number if you are watching this show. Enter into a give away..." And then they could give away cheap swag like t-shirts, coffee mugs and DVD collections. They would probably spend less money than they do for traditional rating info.
Heck, I wouldnt even object to some passive DRM that reports playings over the internet. Why Comcast doesnt use the technology to automatically keep anonymous diaries is beyond me. An actual conspiracy would be useful here.
There's no way that advertisers can MAKE us watch ads.
Two words.
Product placement.
The two best theatrical examples I can think of:
The Truman Show Satirical, disturbing use of 'product placement' for storytelling purposes.
and
Superman: The Movie Cheerios at sunrise scene. Possibly the most tasteful product placement shot in movie history.
Everything else I've seen is just mere product placement(in-content advertising)—no matter how subtle it is. Here is a notable example of the latter style of product placement I remember:
Speed The background Miller Beer Truck in one highway scene and the characters 'swilling' said brand elsewhere in the movie. Probably just ginger ale as a stand-in for 'MGD' or non-alcoholic SHARPS instead of the real thing. No, I don't drink any alcoholic beverages (including stuff like SHARPS)—life is enough of a challenge as it to want to face it in full command of one's faculties.
—30—
TFA fails to mention that the new technologies that Nielsen intends to introduce have been in use in other countries for years. Nielsen (like Microsoft) has an effective monopoly that stifles innovation. Continued use of diaries, a tecnique being phased out in Third World countries is an example of Nielsen's deadening influence. Also of interset is that Nielsen games the patents system to prevent competitors operating in the USA.
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
You know, for the most part, I actually LIKE product placement, and I usually don't think of it as an ad. The best recent example I can think of is in Mission: Impossible 3, when Tom Cruise is called to meet his handler in a 7-11, and is told to pick up a Kodak instant camera. It just makes the film feel like it's taking place in the real world. Now, I didn't feel any urge to go out amd buy from 7-11 or Kodak, though. Even the very blatant product placement in Speed makes it feel more real, although more than one instance of the same product can be a little disarming.
Firefly was a consistent Top 10 show among TiVo users. But they didn't track that data back then, like they do now.
"I'm not a cool person in real life, but I play one on the Internet". Galley
"If everyone started watching '24' or 'CSI' on video iPods or streamed over the Internet -- instead of on TV in their living rooms -- these top-rated shows would probably go the way of 'Cop Rock.' This is because Nielsen Media Research cannot collect data about what people watch on handheld video-viewing gadgets or from PCs streaming network TV shows.
I guess counting downloads off servers is just impossible to figure out.
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."