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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)."
I guess Conan should have had more commercials.
...they count bittorrent views.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Why do they insist on only measuring "full length" media. They will make themselves obsolete if they insist on measuring the way old media works. Related to that sentiment they forgot option "c," keep on ignoring the ratings and do what you like not what they want us to do.
After all, Nielsen reports ratings so that shows can sell more advertising. If the show you're watching doesn't have the same number of ads, then it's useless in terms of advertising sales as it's not apples to apples.
Nobody in advertising cares if 500,000,000 people watch a show if no ads were seen.
For those of us with no cable and using only digital OTA, Hulu (and other online sites) replace a DVR. And I think we'd be willing to sit through commercials.
Call me cheap, but I would, at least.
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.
Unlike traditional TV where you need ratings like Nielsen, to get advertisers, Hulu could just show the traffic that comes to their site.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
So? "OH EM GEE OUR NEILSENS DROPPED"
Seriously, just measure your rating some other way - if you can get a count of viewers from Hulu's site then why even care about Neilsen? I understand they're quite the benchmark for TV, but if you're going to come to the nets you can't just change the rules because of your ties to TV counts - Hulu and other sites already provide stats, why change their model to fit TVs?
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.
My most recent cable TV outage started me thinking about televised entertainment in general. I still remember when cable TV was highly desirable because it didn't have any commercials. Then commercials made occasional appearances in some shows, obviously a trial balloon to measure customer opposition. Then commercials quickly became as prevalent on cable as they were on broadcast TV.
I have been using MythTV for a couple years, and it's been fantastic. I haven't had to sit through a full commercial in that time, and I'd been loving cable TV again. While I fast-forward through commercials (automatic commercial skip is too unreliable), I sometimes saw something that grabbed my attention. In those cases, I usually watched at least a part of the commercial, and discovered a new product. Most often, though, I saved myself centuries (qualitatively speaking) of agony by not having to watch them.
When I got engaged, she and I had better things to do with our time than watch TV. Three weeks into our first month together, I realized that I hadn't missed TV at all, but was still paying $60/month for something I hardly used. I called Mediacom (the local cable company), and canceled the "service" last week.
At the same time, I subscribed to Netflix. For a fraction of the cost of cable, I have a vast choice of movies, a much smaller monthly bill, more reliable service, and a much happier experience overall experience.
When I first tried Hulu, it was an okay service. I had to sit through a couple 7-10 second commercials every half hour, but that wasn't too intolerable. Then Hulu started lengthening the commercials to 30 seconds. It was still not terribly intolerable, because there was usually only one of them every half hour. Then I started seeing two appear every half hour, and it became clear to me which direction Hulu was headed, so I stopped watching Hulu.
I'm at a point now where I watch TV only during tornadic weather, and only to watch the news coverage to track the storms. My fiancé and I watch one movie a night in bed before going to sleep, and that's it. We have freed ourselves from television, and we have advertisers' greed to thank for that. We don't miss TV one bit.
So, Nielson won't count online TV viewing unless its riddled with commercials. If Hulu ever starts to be counted, you can be sure that it has become a worthless service. As far as I'm concerned, it has already become a worthless service.