PDA

View Full Version : Nielsen TV ratings - do you have a box?


fatcatfan
12-26-2002, 10:54 PM
Because of recent developments,

http://www.armageddongames.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66140

http://www.armageddongames.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66600

I've taken a keen interest in how TV ratings are produced. I'm curious if any of our extended AGN family has or knows someone who has a ratings box in their home. Basically this device just monitors what shows are watched by the people in that home in order to provide TV ratings. It's suposed to be a widely dispersed random sample of our population, but I find it odd that I've never encountered anyone who had a rating box or had even seen one.

So do any of you know where there's such a ratings box? And then, can I convince you to watch a certain show on that box?
MottZilla
12-26-2002, 11:10 PM
Never heard of it...
Ganonator
12-27-2002, 12:17 AM
they had a story on NBC news like 4 years ago on people using those boxes... Since random sample only needs 725 people for results to work, the neilsen boxes might not be as widespread as we all think... but to this day, i've still never seen one.
Maverik X
12-27-2002, 12:26 AM
Heard of them, but never seen one. Now I'm all intrigued...
slothman
12-27-2002, 12:49 AM
The closest wasn't actually a box but I did fill out a "what I watched" booklet several years ago.
fatcatfan
12-27-2002, 01:07 PM
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/nielsen_families.html


Why haven’t I ever met a "Nielsen family"?

Actually, you may have. There are hundreds of thousands of "Nielsen families", including diary and metered households. We ask our households not to reveal they are in the Nielsen Media Research panel. This protects their privacy and helps ensure the integrity of the panel. In the few cases where homes have revealed their NielsenTV status, we removed them from the metered panels or disregarded their diaries.

How many "Nielsen families" are there?

There are 5,000 households in the national People Meter sample, approximately 20,000 households in the local metered market samples, approximately 1,000 metered homes for our national and local Hispanic measurement, and nearly 1.6 million diaries are edited each year.

So I guess no one here is going to "reveal" that they are a Neilsen family. Well, anyone who sees this and has a box, I hope you'll consider watching Farscape on Friday's beginning January 10th. Just watch it once to see what all the hubbub is about. If you don't like it, fine.