Financial Times:
Top US media companies and marketers have created a consortium to challenge the dominant force in TV audience measurement.
Nielsen controls the measurement of US audiences through the polling of 18,000 homes, where viewer habits are measured by clicks of a special remote control.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I can just sense "Faux Spews" real ratings coming in -- Nada.
Are you kidding? Fox news will always get ratings cause like it or not there is still a big chunk of this country that is fanatically conservative and they need daddy to tell them everything is all right( or in the case of a black president that we are all going to die).
Where as the average progressive could give or take networks like MSNBC( I take less and less everyday), the conservatives will never abandon Fox, to do so would be like taking out part of their brain, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.
The Neilsons are a joke( I know I used to work for them), but Fox will always get numbers they have their viewers by the frontal lobe.
Good, they need to prove themselves. Their uncontested polling has made them a lot of money and handed them far too much power in shaping American society.
I do not believe in this kind of poll, and I think that it's fix anyway in advance
When it come to the numbers this article is way less than accurate. The Nielsen company reaches millions of homes in a variety of way. They also include internet tv ans the satellites.
I kind get the feeling they aren't popular because many don't like the results.....
NO WONDER that (with the exception of Mad Men) television is populated by such crap.
Good - it's about time someone challenged Nielsen - especially if they're only polling 18,000 homes.
About time their should be more competition to challenge Nielsen when it comes to ratings surveying. Nielsen is a republican corporation so it's probably no big suprise they push numbers to favor conservative media
Let's see the logic to this.
Enron accountants used bogus accounting to come with the numbers that they wanted.
Stock rating agencies used bogus information to rate companies more strongly than they should.
Madoff used bogus numbers to promote his Ponzi scheme.
But Neilson? They, of course, use real numbers. Their information is accurate and reliable.
After the debacle with Moody’s over rating derivatives, I tend not to trust any “ratings” organizations. They hide their methodology and say “trust me”. I don’t.
You are wise. The louder they talk of their honor, the faster I count the spoons.
The fact that technology has advanced way past what Neilsen is monitoring shows how out of touch the ratings system is. Just rating those that view TV in today's society should go the way of the beta players.
Since I don't use radio, TV or print media, save the TLS, this mess about advertisers not trusting Nielson & the advertisers plan to start their own, allegedly more accurate, rating service, elicits a big yawn. Web sites are in a position to tell advertisers exactly how many users a site has. The web sites might know who uses their site.
I assume that saavy sites, like HP, can tell advertisers how many HP users have or will use an ad. Privacy is a big thing on the web; again, I assume that HP protects my privacy when I use HP.
I feel that I can avoid specific ads on HP. That suits me. As for advertisers, having a web user use an ad when the user isn't likely to respond favorably to the ad, is a waste of money. I live in an assisted living residence. There isn't much that I want to buy. Paying for a car ad to reach me is futile, I don't drive any more. When I want to go some place, I arrange for a car & driver to take me there. I don't have any need for a car.
I agree with most of your comments, except those about privacy on the web.I've noticed that when i post here about, say, "shoes" a number of ads on the sidebars are from shoe stores. It depends on which section of HP I am on, but the ads usually correspond to what I am writing.
Have you checked with your ISP? I often have my comments posted on HP & I haven't been exposed to any ads which relate to my concerns evers since I started using HP about 5 years ago. But I'm 72 years old. Not many people my age buy much. It would be a waste of ad money to direct any ads to me for I only buy from web merchants I've used previously. Ad agencies don't like to waste a client's money; if they do waste a client's ad money, their client gets another ad agency quickly.
Typo: evers, on 2d line, should read ever. I apologize to you, Chernynkay, for the careless error I made in my reply to you. I'd be grateful if you accepted my apology. Thank you.
I think this is great! I had absolutely no idea that a miniscule 18K is the "national" sample. What a joke. Rachel Maddow has over a million followers on Twitter so you can bet that they watch her show even though Nielson's rating's don't reflect it.
I can't wait to see what the ratings look like when the dust settles. While the ratings will never reflect the quality of a show, it would be nice to stop listening to the people who believe that is so. I'm also willing to bet the folks with the Nielson boxes are older folks tied to their tv's all day long. That's another poll I'd like to see.
I am reading the Huffington Post and I am supposed to go to The FINANCIAL TIMES to read the whole story?!
Are you mad? Seriously, why not just send your readers to the seventh ring of He//?
.....what?
LMAO!!!! Good one!
Besides, i'm boycotting FT since the "Felix" thing...
That said, I will surmise this new consortium will give Nielson some good and overdue competition. Good luck!
I hadn’t yet decided to boycott FT, perhaps I will. But I will not now, and never again link to a Politico story ever again. I will not give them my click as a sign of conformation or to help legitimize them.
I'm with you and huffinpuff should stop linking to their craziness.
So there!!!
you would think that with all the people getting their TV through cable , they would be able to get a chip in it to record what the houselhold is watching.
oh wait , they do it already....
oh wait , ins t it invastion of privacy??
eh all you need is to have the end user agree to the monitoring. id be more than happy to have my viewing habits recorded..
We need no more monopolies.
Loading comments…
Posted: 08-13-09 08:36 PM