For those who don't know, Nielson is a rating system based on a "survey" format. Meaning that Nielsen looks at a certain number of television viewers and determines what a viewership should be. It also requires the selected household to have a Nielsen box or Set Meters that are connected to the back of their television. It gathers the household viewing habits, from channel changes to skipping through commercials, and sends them directly to Nielsen nightly. There is an estimated 116 million television viewers in the United States. Only 25,000 households have a Nielsen box.
Using one of my favorite shows, Legend of the Seeker (LOTS) as an example. Here is how the boxes work: Where I live LOTS came on Sunday at 8 PM. During that time, out of the 25,000 Nielsen boxes, maybe 1,500 households watched. It would then be calculated and averaged that 1.5 million viewers tuned in. In reality 30 million households could have actually watched LOTS on Sunday at 8 PM. The rest of us, including myself, do not get counted in these numbers.
Nielsen also only tracks about 1.5 million DVR boxes, but doesn't count Netflix or Hulu views either. Genre shows generally cost more to produce. With the numbers Nielsen produces, it's understandable that it would scare away potential customers from purchasing commercial spots. Causing a show to get unjustly canceled. This is why cable shows last longer with lower ratings. They are not handcuffed by this system as you have to pay to acquire their service.
The Nielsen rating system needs to change. It's a medieval system that doesn't work anymore. Television shows are too expansive just to rely on it alone. As long as this dying system remains in place, viewers will continuously be robbed of great television. In a world where cheaper reality shows continue to take over our programming, this can not continue.
Good stuff man. That system is pretty archaic.
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