Neilson Boxes...?

[AnubisCat]

I'm just curious... I have read some of the threads talking about writing Neilson..... but what I want to know is how do we get one of thier boxes into our homes, and would that make any kind of a difference now if we showed any network that Farscape really does have the veiwers and that the ratings weren't really accurate?
Not that I think that alone will do it, but it couldn't hurt.

[LiLOrion]

Nielsen chooses its box holders....you cannot request one, well, you CAN, they will just ignore you. :)

I believe they do it more or less arbitrarily by household income or ages of members of the household, but someone will correct me on that if I'm wrong or if there is more to how they choose participants.

If more people with Nielsen boxes started watching Farscape reruns, it could only help the cause not hurt it.


Oh, and welcome to the board! :hi:

[AnubisCat]

Thanks for the welcome! That sounds kind of bogus..... do you know how it is that they choose who gets a box? It seems that thier methods are left greatly lacking and does not give a true demographic of who is watching what....

[LiLOrion]

Well, I THINK what they do is randomly choose people out of certain demographics (such as household income, age, and they might use other factors...which they might list on their website).

So they are getting randomly picked demographic representation, just not in the demographics of people watching Farscape. :)

They have to choose people by random though, or their results would be "tainted". If anyone who wanted a box could get one, people could be paid to watch certain programs to increase the ratings...which is also why Nielsen families are not supposed to TELL anyone they are Nielsen families.


I think maybe they need to add "GENRE" to the demographics they pick from. In other words "drama", "comedy", and of course "sci-fi". Sci-Fi shows would get some nice numbers then I'm sure.


Edited to add:

Participation in their Nielsen program is NOT manditory. They call you, send you letter or come to your house (I think) and ASK you if you want to be a Nielsen family. From what I understand I think they tend to have some trouble convincing people to participate, for whatever reason it seems some people dont want to be bothered with the whole process.

Oh, and just so you know, this thread might be moved to another forum like the "OT" forum or "Network News" forum.

[AnubisCat]

*sigh*... Yeah, I really do understand all that. It just seems to me that get truelly accurate "ratings" they need to figure out a way to get what every tv in the country is viewing (but then that would bring up concerns of privacy from the general populace). But from what I understand of the system that they have now, only gives a small percentage. All the networks take that as "gospel" which it shouldn't be. Too many good shows are killed because of it. Conversely, there are a lot more piles of dren that remain on the air, I can only assume inspite or despite of it.

Did any of that make sense?......... I think it's time for me to get off line.. the pain meds are starting to kick in.. :freak2:

[LiLOrion]

Originally posted by AnubisCat
It just seems to me that get truelly accurate "ratings" they need to figure out a way to get what every tv in the country is viewing


THAT is the argument of EVERY fan of a TV show that has been canned due to "low" ratings. :D



I'm a fan of Nielsen putting "chips" in cable boxes, digital and satellite receivers and people could "sign-off" (due to privacy issues of course) on whether or not they would want to participate and have the "chip" turned on to record their viewing habits. But it seems Nielsen likes their few thousands boxes idea better. :)

[Scaper989]

I believe there are only 5,000 Nielsen boxes representing our
entire country. It's quite a cumbersome installation, requireing
your VCR be wired in. I have a friend who had one. When they
wanted to have their carpets cleaned they had to call a Nielsen
tech in. They decided it was too much of a PITA and had it
removed. (this was well before the cancelation).

I favor the "personal people meter" which is a pager-sized device.
This would record whatever shows you are exposed to at a
friend's house, bar, etc. No installation, you just have to hook it
up to a phone line at night so it can download it's data.

Welcome to the fight!

[PrairieScaper]

Welcome, AnubisCat! (Interesting moniker.)

I'm with you. I'm skeptical that Nielsen gets a truly representative sampling of the population through their box system. There have been some very long and far-ranging threads regarding ratings. Interesting stuff. But I remain unconvinced. Or maybe I want to think better of my fellow humans. Can people really be watching some of the dren at the top of the ratings heap??? :grr: [wonders away muttering to self]

[MediaSavant]

Originally posted by Scaper989
I favor the "personal people meter" which is a pager-sized device.
This would record whatever shows you are exposed to at a
friend's house, bar, etc. No installation, you just have to hook it
up to a phone line at night so it can download it's data.


If you haven't, check out the post on the PPM I made over in the Network News section.

The PPM is theoretically a better idea, but the test in Philadelphia has had problems with cooperation rates.

[Frunium Slip]

Yep I read your post, seems to me, in my evil plan to take over viewing habits of the world, this plays right into my overall strategy, take the loyal fan base, spike the ratings for farscape re-runs, while everyone else dimisses their use of the device. All reality TV shows would receive inordinately low ratings, Farscape would peg the meters, and we'd be off in running... :devil:

But now back to the real world...

[AnubisCat]

I like the idea of the chip in the cable/satelite tv boxes, with the ability to opt out. That really seems the best way, but dinosaurs like Nielson I guess just don't like the idea of entering the 21'st Century.

I can't even count how many decent-superb programs I've seen bite the dust way before thier time because of this so called rating system. While the dren remains. For a while I had three shows that watched each week... now it's down to one, and that one is starting to dissapoint me.

PrairieScaper: is that interesting "good" or interesting in the "Celtic sense" (Something you WOULDN'T put in your mouth... Or.. "Oh gee Grandma, that sweater's....... interesting")? ;) :lol

[PrairieScaper]

The chip idea certainly seems simple enough. Would the problem be getting all manufacturers to insert a standard chip? That just doesn't seem insurmountable to me.

AC, I mean "interesting" as in unique and gee, is there a FS connection of which I'm unaware? Definitely not like Grammy's sweater... :lol

(Here's the thread that got me pondering screennames: http://www.watchfarscape.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9012&highlight=screenname)

[AnubisCat]

Ah, ok... so then interesting(in this case)=good. :) No there's no FS connection that I know of. Although that would be cool! I'll go over to that thread and try to explain my screen name.

[MediaSavant]

It intrigues me that everyone is convinced that a larger sample size for any research would produce a larger rating for Farscape. Why?

Right now 5000 randomly selected home reveal--say-- that about 1% watched Farscape episodes.

Why would another 5000 randomly selected homes reveal a markedly different percentage?

Or another? Or another?

Larger sample sizes only reflect a confidence level in the results. That doesn't necessarily mean the results are that wrong.

It would be one thing if Farscape viewers represented a demographic group that Nielsen has trouble recruiting, but many of you don't appear to be in those groups. (and I know what they are)

[AnubisCat]

Originally posted by MediaSavant
It intrigues me that everyone is convinced that a larger sample size for any research would produce a larger rating for Farscape. Why?

Right now 5000 randomly selected home reveal--say-- that about 1% watched Farscape episodes.

Why would another 5000 randomly selected homes reveal a markedly different percentage

Well maybe it would maybe it wouldn't..... I don't really know either way for sure. This is a personal oppinion that those 5000 boxes don't give an accurate reading out of 2,825,230,516 people in the US as of 2000 (I couldn't find a census for '02). And for me, it's not just about Farscape... it's about a large handful of good shows that have gone the way of the dodo because of an inaccurate (IMHO) system.

Of course I also realize that this thread is really a very moot point as I'm sure that Neilson won't impliment a better system, ie; A chip in all cable/satelite reciever/boxes.

[LiLOrion]

I dont think they are WRONG, I just think that they possibly are hitting samples where no one watches Farscape. It is possible with only 5000 Nielsen boxes that they are hitting "cold spots" and missing "hot spots" when it comes to selecting their participants.

I'm not really all that sure what demographics they pick and choose from (is it ONLY household income, or age or ethinicity, etc.)?

I just find it hard to believe that in this day and age with hundreds of cable/satellite channels that the vast majority of TV viewers are still predominantly watching network TV, which is what the ratings suggest. (And yes, I know that there are more people with TVs that dont have pay stations than those that do).

In today's EW that I got, (with the IT list), the "TOP 30 cable" list had the #1 show at a viewership of ONLY 5.9 million viewers, #50 was 3.2 million. (I'm not sure actually what the Nielsen rating is for those numbers though and whether or not they are just numbers for adults 18-49).

--------

Also from what I remember from previous conversations on the board, network TV ratings are based on ALL households with TVs, which makes sense cause everyone with a TV gets at least ONE network TV station even if they have to have one of their kids hold rabbit ears above their heads for an hour.
But, cable ratings are not only taken for those households with cable, but for every household with a TV...and NOT every TV household has cable. So a few million households without cable are being factored into cable ratings and naturally those ratings come down as a result. Maybe they do this for a mathematic reason, but I am not a math wiz and cannot understand why.

[Shipscat]

Well, because the smaller the sample the more that it matters that there's a margin for error. For instance, if we were talking about 25 percent of Nielsen boxes watching Farscape instead of fifty as being important, it wouldn't matter. If you're talking about 1.3 percent as opposed to 2 percent, then you're getting down to just a few individuals. It's ridiculous.

Suppose you take a group of ten thousand, half of which are coke and half of which are pepsi drinkers, and divide them in half-You're quite likely to end up with one half coke drinkers. But suppose you have a group of ten thousand and one percent are Farscape fans, and you divide them in half. It would be quite easy to end up with your 100 people on the wrong side of the divide.

It's like when they do tiny clinical studies for something and try to make sense out of that one person who's blood pressure rises while they're in the study taking the experimental drug. They can't make any accurate statements about risk until they've used a much larger sample.

I don't doubt that the Nielsens can tell you whether someone's getting 25 percent of an audience or 30-that's what it was designed for. But when you're trying to say that it's capable of the difference between one percent or two, I don't believe it.