Slashdot Mirror
Nielsen Ratings To Count Online TV Viewing
cashman73 writes "Several sources are reporting that Nielsen is finally going to start measuring online TV viewing. You would think that this is a good idea, since many people are now watching TV programs on the Internet. However, there's a catch: Nielsen's new service will only count viewings of a program with the same number of advertisements as the network TV model. So, this immediately eliminates Hulu, as well as any shows watched via the network's own websites. As a matter of fact, it would currently only include Comcast's XFinity TV service, and TV Everywhere (which, so far, appears to be the equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever for television). So either, (a) everyone will rush out to watch their online TV on Comcast XFinity, so that their viewing counts in the ratings (unlikely), or (b) Hulu and everyone else starts to put more advertisements on their shows (more likely, but would also probably mean the death of Hulu)."
Probably because Hulu depends on the content guys for their existence, and the content guys are going to be increasingly unhappy if, when the provide a show to hulu, the show's Neilsens suffer precisely because the show is popular on hulu.
It is hard to understate the importance of Neilsen numbers in Hollywood. The very first thing the average exec does in the morning - before he's even had coffee - is to check the overnight numbers. There *is* no other barometer of success.
And, these are not computer-savvy execs - for the most part, they grew up when "computer" meant "IBM", and they still have their secretaries print out their emails to be read. So they aren't going to be implementing their own alternate ratings system.
So the fact that Neilsen is improving the ratings system - however lame these initial improvements are - is going to make things better.
When Hulu pitches their online service to an ad agency they don't need Neilsen to tell them how many people are watching their shows - they already collect that stuff on their own.
Insightful
Said another way, why would Neilsen spend money to estimate the number of viewers of hulu when hulu already knows exactly.