Slashdot Mirror
Nielsen Struggles To Track Modern Viewing Habits
RobotRunAmok writes "The Nielsen Company has been the principal entity tracking TV shows' popularity, and, by extension, their potential profitability. But as our media consumption practices change, some believe that Nielsen's methods have not kept pace. A new consortium including networks owned by NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery, and Walt Disney — along with major advertisers — is calling for the creation of a new audience measurement service, and planning to solicit bids from outside firms by the fourth quarter of this year. Nielsen says they're not worried about so many of their customers ganging up on them, having just invested more than a billion dollars in research to stay modern. Except that today Nielsen announced they would pointedly not be adding weights to DVR households, and that adding weights for the presence of a personal computer or Internet access in under-represented households would provide 'no significant change or enhancement' to its national TV ratings sample. The pundits deride Nielsen's 'archaic' methodology and 'disco-era tactics,' but others scoff that such a consortium will only 'put the foxes in charge of the henhouse.' Stay tuned..."
Seriously, is there anyone under the age of 40 who DOESN'T use a DVR anymore? And I don't mean the "I don't even *OWN* a TV!" snobs, I'm talking about average people. I can't imagine going back to watching live TV, and can't believe that Nielsen is still not taking me adequately into account. I think they do finally factor in some DVR's now (contrary to the summary), but only one per household and only under weirdly strict conditions (like having to watch the show within 24 hrs. of its airing).
Okay, I can understand them not weighing us DVR watchers as much as grandma watching her stories on live TV (since we're a lot less likely to actually watch the ads that the Nielsens are all about). But to only count us under a few conditions is to ignore the reality that we're in the 21st century (some of us are even watching *gasp* HD content, which Nielsen is also still undervaluing).
Come on, I'm tired of seeing crap network shows that my great-aunt watches in the top ten and the shows *I* like getting shitcanned for "low ratings." I would even be willing to "opt-in" to a DVR viewing log system if it meant that my viewing habits could save a few decent shows.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The headline is inaccurate, as the story is more about how Nielsen isn't struggling to track modern viewing habits.
Caveat Utilitor
Also, add in the other forms of digital distribution, and digital cable, can't the source providers just collect their own data?
At least for my viewing habits. I maybe consistently watch maybe 1-2 shows live each week. Throw in a few hours of channel browsing, usually flipping between Discovery Channel, History Channel, Food Network, NatGeo, SciFi (SyFy), or Military Channel. That said, the shows I really watch, I am recording in HD on my custom built Home Theater PC (HTPC) for watching at my leisure, on my own schedule. It might be a week or two later before I watch a show, but I do watch them. And Neilson doesn't even count me. Probably one of the reasons why shows like Futurama were cut in the fist place, only to finally be put back into production from the out-cry and DVD sales numbers (which told them that Neilson's ratings for the show was complete utter BS).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Stay tuned
Should have read "don't touch that dial!"
Damn kids, get off my lawn!
Free Martian Whores!
All in all, I think we would all benefit because the networks would know which shows no one cares about and could adjust their programming quicker and the advertisers would have a better idea of how to reach their target demographic and how much they should be paying to do so.
Easy peasy.
As a consequence, Nielsen will do whatever it can to stonewall, obfuscate, and generally hide the obvious: the day of Network hegemony is coming to a close.
This doesn't mean the Networks are going to disappear. What it does mean is that the Network business model of delivering motion picture, and the techniques, methods, aesthetics, and processes developed to support that system, is no longer the complete hegemonic force it used to be. In 1948 there was radio and TV and movies and... ummmm... not much else. Today there is broadcast TV, Cable TV, online video, radio, satellite radio, computer games, game consoles, Web2.0 social networks and similar systems (viz 2nd life), podcasts, etc. etc. etc.
The last actual advertisement I paid attention to AT ALL was last week (well, actually this morning - the girl on the billboard was f*cking hott. don't know what she was selling, but damn she was cute...) when I actually clicked on an advert to find out more about a certain brand of eReader (no, not the kindle...) So, that particular advert was successful, and it was online. Not on TV.
That's the mindshare competition TV is dealing with, and what Nielsen refuses to deal with. TV could actually GROW in size, and still be increasingly marginalised by the explosion of all the other media.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I don't subscribe to cable, and don't really watch "over-the-air" TV, mostly because I don't really feel like fiddling with the antennae. I do watch lots of shows on Hulu, which is great from the network standpoint, because all they have to do is check website server logs and javascript reports to find out how many times someone is watching their show. The best part about it, is that they get an exact number of who's accessed the file, so there's no "sampling" of the population going on. Plus, they can sell ads based on an exact number. This is probably exactly why Hulu is so valuable to NBC and Fox (and now ABC).
Not entirely true--- the media companies make no actual money from audience figures directly, only from advertising. So their vested interest is in getting the best-looking audience data that still looks plausible to advertisers. That's one reason advertisers want a 3rd party to collect the audience data, not the networks; it's less believable for a network to say, "oh yeah, according to our methodology 30 million people watch this show regularly, that'll be $rate please".
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Let me first say I totally agree with your point. But really, I think this is about something different than what most of us logically think it should be about.
I suspect the networks and advertisers are interested, primarily, in who is tuning in to the provided programming in "real time". Even if they find out that a certain TV series is wildly popular with people who recorded it to watch later? They may still be most fixated on the numbers who thought it was worth interrupting their day or night to watch it, as soon as it hit the airwaves.
I'm not in this industry, but I can see how an advertiser would place a lot of value on knowing their commercial is being viewed in a prompt manner by viewers. (EG. If you want to run an ad talking about a special sale "this weekend only!" at your local sandwich shop or car dealership, the ad is rendered useless to anyone who "gets around to watching it" on their DVR the following week.)
We were a Nielsen family for a couple of years, up until about March. The amount of equipment that they attached to the TV and all the associated devices was staggering. We also had a TV in the bedroom that contained a DVD player. They took the TV apart and put lots of wires inside and a box on the outside. Some how they amanged to break a VCR during the installation, which they replaced. Both TVs in the house had a complete PC attached and ran a separate wireless network as well as connecting to the house phone lines. There were zillions of wires and lots of little boxes behind the TV. If the whole gamisch didn't call in daily to report on us for a day or two, the technician would schedule a visit and pound on his PC for an hour or so and then leave, satisfied that he's done something. Last March, during the Final Four, our old 1994 27" Sony Trinitron died and when I went shopping for a new TV, I decided that it was time for Nielsen to go. It was an interesting experience but I was very unimpressed with the complexity of their equipment. Now I know what a modern Rube Goldberg device looks like.
Seems to me that Nielsen's metrics are just about useless these days.
How many people actively watch television without a DVR? Wouldn't it be fairly easy for those DVRs to simply report back what shows you're watching? Yeah, I know, privacy and all that... But your average person is just renting it from their cable/dish provider and doesn't have much say in what the box does anyway.
And folks watching television programs through on-line services like hulu or whatever can easily be tracked as well. Just record the number of views a given show's gotten - much like the counters on YouTube.
Hell, even folks who don't use a DVR typically have some kind of cable/dish de-scrambler box... Those could report viewing habits as well.
I certainly understand the appeal of having an impartial party responsible for the data... But it doesn't seem like this kind of data collection should be terribly difficult to do these days. Seems like the bigger challenge would be for viewers who don't want to participate to keep their usage private.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
1. Do you like Science Fiction Stories? (Y/N)
(Note to test processor, if the answer to question 1 is Y then discard survey immediately)
2. Do you like Matlock and/or HeeHaw? (Y/N)
(Note to test processor, if the answer to question 2 is N then discard survey immediately)
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I used to work for Nielsen as a field rep. The way they gather the data is solid, but they have some serious issues with quality control. Meaning too much QC. If the power goes out in one section of the home, and the box is reset, the whole days viewing data is thrown out for the WHOLE household. They should just throw out that one viewing site. As for DVRs, the article fails to mention that Nielsen already accounts for DVRs, quite well I might add. It's live+7 days. Meaning that if you recorded tuesdays american idol, and didn't watch it til sunday, it still counts for tuesdays viewing data. How it deals with the nightly numbers was a bit above my pay grade, but i think the DVR equipment tracked the SID codes while it was recording.
:)
Biggest problem Nielsen really has is internet usage. They just (like 3 years ago) started tracking internet sites with their A2M2 program. The sample is very very small, about 1/5th the size of a TV sample. And a lot of the households are former TV sample homes. (they offer them the I2 program as the home comes out of the LPM sample) They also now are able to track distance family members, like kids at college are counted now away from home, but count as part of the household. (figure that one out if the parents live in Minneapolis, and the kid goes to school in LA?)
As for people wondering why Nielsen is a viable company in this digital age? Simple demographics. Nielsen has every household members income, job title, where they work, shopping habits, age, etc. The cable company can find out what a person is watching through an STB, but doesn't have ANY of the demographics of the household. Nielsen using LPM systems can tell you EXACTLY who was watching what at a specific time, including the persons age, wine buying habits, primary shopper in the home or not, and what kind of car(year, make, model) they drive. (yes, these were the questions i had to ask households every 3 months) Obscene target audiences. Even with the old NSI sample, Nielsen had more data than the cable companies. (NSI is total household data, LPM is persons data)
For those really wondering, Nielsen does track homes that pirate satellite/cable. They just don't show that number anywhere.
You may worship in any direction you choose. I am omnipresent.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
$2/episode is a lot of money. If you watch an hour of TV a night(way below average), that's about 3 shows once you cut out the ad time. Even if you only do that on week nights, that's $30 a week or $120 a month. Way too much to spend on TV.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The studios have to do something sooner or later. The Nielsen way of tracking things sucks. For certain genres of television, the viewing habits of it's audience will tend to shift. If it shifts in a way not tracked by Nielsen, an otherwise good show may be canceled. Science fiction in particular is hurt here as it's audience tends to be the technophile crowd who are just not as likely to watch it broadcast at primetime.
For example, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which as a series I enjoyed far more than the latest movie) showed terrible Nielsen ratings, yet it's DVR numbers were good, it's foreign market numbers were excellent, and week after week it was among the top downloads at the iTunes store. It was doing good in other areas, just not in the over the air live audience arena, and so it got canned. Hopefully we'll see less of this as studios start tracking things more accurately.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain