I Was A Nielsen Family
The following is an e-mail I sent to Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, after reading his letter from the editor in which he wrote of being a Nielsen Ratings conspiracy theorist:
Hi Tim,
I just finished reading your letter from the editor in today's Guardian about your Nielsen ratings cospiracy. When I was in college, my household was chosen to be a Nielsen family. We said no at first, but then the Nielsen lady kept offering us money, sending us plants and jams and promising free dinners and pizza. We were broke, so it sounded good to us. She came to our house and interviewed each of for about 45 minutes. A week later two men showed up at our house and took apart all of our TVs and TV related equipment (VCRs, video game systems). It was at this point we began to think the Nielsen people were really the FBI. We would joke that they put cameras and microphones in all the equipment and in a poinsettia she had given us.
They hooked up a box with blinking lights to our TVs. Every time we watched TV we were supposed to enter in our info on a remote. We were supposed to do this every time we changed the channel and every three or four minutes when the lights started blinking again. We were also supposed to enter our guests in, including age and sex. This was EXTREMELY annoying. About a week we couldn't handle it any more so we started making shit up. We'd enter that nineteen 7-year-olds were watching Temptation Island in our living room. We'd enter that fifteen 85-year-olds were watching Teletubbies. This went on for months.
What I learned from our Nielsen experience is that the ratings system is absolute bullshit.Fraud and fake entries have got to be rampant. And anyone who is willing to go through the unbelievably annoying process has got to be a complete moron.
Hi Tim,
I just finished reading your letter from the editor in today's Guardian about your Nielsen ratings cospiracy. When I was in college, my household was chosen to be a Nielsen family. We said no at first, but then the Nielsen lady kept offering us money, sending us plants and jams and promising free dinners and pizza. We were broke, so it sounded good to us. She came to our house and interviewed each of for about 45 minutes. A week later two men showed up at our house and took apart all of our TVs and TV related equipment (VCRs, video game systems). It was at this point we began to think the Nielsen people were really the FBI. We would joke that they put cameras and microphones in all the equipment and in a poinsettia she had given us.
They hooked up a box with blinking lights to our TVs. Every time we watched TV we were supposed to enter in our info on a remote. We were supposed to do this every time we changed the channel and every three or four minutes when the lights started blinking again. We were also supposed to enter our guests in, including age and sex. This was EXTREMELY annoying. About a week we couldn't handle it any more so we started making shit up. We'd enter that nineteen 7-year-olds were watching Temptation Island in our living room. We'd enter that fifteen 85-year-olds were watching Teletubbies. This went on for months.
What I learned from our Nielsen experience is that the ratings system is absolute bullshit.Fraud and fake entries have got to be rampant. And anyone who is willing to go through the unbelievably annoying process has got to be a complete moron.
Hi,
That is an interest bit! I am not from the US but I always wondered how half of the country was watching the oscars??? I mean really? Movie lovers like movies but half the country?
Cheers
Posted by nadine | 11:22 AM