We Were Nielsen Rating Guinea Pigs

Way Back When... In The TV Era

Nielsen Ratings, if you haven't heard of them, determine how many people are watching which TV programs.  This is done by contacting households and requesting that all TV viewing for one week be recorded in a diary that is delivered and returned through the mail.  Our household recorded our viewing habits for the week of November 12th through the 19th.

This is the second time we've participated.  The first, in the 1980s, occasioned my writing about the experience in Treetop Panorama, the print newsletter that I published back then (a kind of blog before the internet happened).

Both experiences made me wonder whether TV ratings really work.  The obvious problem is that favorite shows are, well, favored.  If I really like a program, am I going to admit that friends came over just when I was planning to watch?  If I'm fanatical about it, no way!  I'll write it down as a watched program, anyway.

Which raises the question of how much TV we're really watching, and how much is a function of, essentially, ballot stuffing.  I've read where the Nielsen folks have a small sample of households with gizmos that measure when a TV is actually turned on, rather than relying on diary reporting, and this small sample is used to authenticate the raw data from diary entries.  But fanatics could simply make sure their TVs are on and tuned to the right channel when their favorites are playing.  And if the gizmos measure how many bodies are in the room when a TV is on (another sampling method that I believe occurs), fanatics would still make sure they watched certain programs, where normally they might miss a few episodes.  And we haven't even gotten to the DVR (aka TiVO).

The upshot of all this is that Americans probably watch less TV than reported.

So, what programs did our family watch?  And did we cheat--even a little bit?

Honestly, because we use a DVR to record and then view programs at a later time, it was occasionally easier to simply write in programs when they were normally broadcast, rather than remember the precise timing, especially when flipping between channels and watching the second half of a program before the first half (we often do this with the PBS Newshour, so that our dinners are eaten when the softer, more calming news is on).

Except for a slight tendency to watch more, we stuck to our usual viewing patterns.  The occasional Newshour, Antiques Roadshow, Charlie Rose, Illinois Stories, and Masterpiece on PBS, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, morning business programming on CNBC, Late Night with Stephen Colbert on CBS, and America Unearthed on History 2.  Other shows we recorded, but didn't watch that week: The Simpsons on Fox, Portlandia on IFC, Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN and The McGlaughlin Group on PBS (our PBS affiliate rebroadcasts programming from other channels).

Despite the lengthy list, we averaged perhaps 2 hours per person, mainly because we only watched parts of shows--and only occasionally, in the case of daily broadcasts.

I have written previously that I favor an a-la-carte cable/satellite fee structure with a large, rotating selection of additional free channels that would pay the cable/satellite companies to be included in a customer's channel mix as targeted, temporary promos.  Frankly, I resent having to pay for ESPN when I never watch it, and I'm sure others feel similarly about the programming I enjoy.

A-la-carte with promoted channels thrown in would seem likely in any attempt to end the exodus of cable/satellite viewers to streaming services on the internet.

Here's an example:

First, I pay 20% less than I currently do.  I get my favorite ten channels, let's say PBS, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, History, Fox, C-Span, CNBC, IFC,  and Bloomberg.  Then, second, my satellite company rotates another 20 channels into my package that it thinks I might like (based on what I already watch).  And finally, third, if I want I can either switch out, say CNBC for a new channel, or I can bump myself up to 15 channels instead of only 10; this would mean getting only a 15% discount, perhaps, from what I currently pay.  And finally, the 20 networks getting, say, a few months to catch my attention would pay to be included in my bundle and their revenue would make up for my 15-20% discount.

Don'tcha know, gotta go; TV's turned on.