Current Events > Recently ended my 2 year contract with the Nielsen Ratings Program. AMA.

(+) Yeah! (+)

My two years with them finally ended so I'm allowed to break my silence. It was a fun ride and I sure am sad to be out of the club. Ever wondered how the Nielsen TV Ratings work? How to become a Nielsen Family? Ask all and I'll tell all! Also accepting other questions, of course!
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I usually just take the dollar and throw the survey away
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gafemaqs posted...

I usually just take the dollar and throw the survey away

You're missing out!
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hey my brother works for them. I have no idea what he does...
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bevan306 posted...

hey my brother works for them. I have no idea what he does...

Makes sense. It's very hush hush.
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From what I gather, pretty much, all these people who are going to "protest" and not watch the NFL to "hurt ratings" technically are doing nothing to the ratings unless they are a part of this kind of program, right? They only track what people watch that sign up for this kind of thing to my understanding.
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Do you get money or benefits of any kind for being in it?
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MabusIncarnate posted...

From what I gather, pretty much, all these people who are going to "protest" and not watch the NFL to "hurt ratings" technically are doing nothing to the ratings unless they are a part of this kind of program, right? They only track what people watch that sign up for this kind of thing to my understanding.

Right. You have to be in the program for the ratings to count. If you don't have a Nielsen Box, you don't count.

N1NJAREB0RN posted...

Do you get money or benefits of any kind for being in it?

Yes, they paid me.
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How many people have a box? There's like 300 million people in the US. Are Nielsen ratings really accurate as to what the country is watching?
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MorbidFaithless posted...

How many people have a box? There's like 300 million people in the US. Are Nielsen ratings really accurate as to what the country is watching?

I think there's some couple thousand boxes operational at a time. Each "viewer" counts as 25,000 homes. Not people, HOMES. There could be 4 or more people in one home. So that should give you a good figure.
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How much did they pay you?

Over the two year period? I'd have to dig out the stubs, but somewhere between 300-400 dollars. So not very much, all things considered.
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I used to do the Arbitron thing. Made some decent money for doing basically nothing and being under 18 at the time.
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legolas0008 posted...

I used to do the Arbitron thing. Made some decent money for doing basically nothing and being under 18 at the time.

What's that?
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Good afternoon, CE!
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My other question is why would you do it?
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N1NJAREB0RN posted...

My other question is why would you do it?

Because I thought it was cool. My views counted for something. I had the opportunity to promote my personal tastes in television programming.
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I hope you didn't watch big bang theory.
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Chicken posted...

I hope you didn't watch big bang theory.

I kinda like that show.
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did you watch young sheldon
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mario2000 posted...

did you watch young sheldon

I don't really know the names of the episodes, but maybe.
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SableWolfAngel posted...

mario2000 posted...

did you watch young sheldon

I don't really know the names of the episodes, but maybe.

Are all Neilsen viewers this dumb?

Young Sheldon is the new spin off, not the name of an episode.
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SableWolfAngel posted...

What's that?

It's what the Nielsen Audio program used to be called.
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N1NJAREB0RN posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

mario2000 posted...

did you watch young sheldon

I don't really know the names of the episodes, but maybe.

Are all Neilsen viewers this dumb?

Young Sheldon is the new spin off, not the name of an episode.

Well excuse me for not knowing about a spin off of a show I don't regularly watch. Quit your bitching, jerk.

legolas0008 posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

What's that?

It's what the Nielsen Audio program used to be called.

Oh, cool! Thanks for telling me that. I'll have to pick your brain about that later.
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Sex, marry, kill: strikegently, franklin, and brutal?
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SableWolfAngel posted...

Chicken posted...

I hope you didn't watch big bang theory.

I kinda like that show.

That is why they let you be a Nielsen viewer
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Pics
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ssj3vegeta2 posted...

Sex, marry, kill: strikegently, franklin, and brutal?

Kill all.

Damn_Underscore posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

Chicken posted...

I hope you didn't watch big bang theory.

I kinda like that show.

That is why they let you be a Nielsen viewer

They didn't factor that in at all. They're an unbiased company. I don't think I watch BBT once in those two years. I only watched it because my boyfriend at the time liked it, but that was long before I was a Nielsen Family.

Bloodychess posted...

Pics

Of?
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SableWolfAngel posted...

N1NJAREB0RN posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

mario2000 posted...

did you watch young sheldon

I don't really know the names of the episodes, but maybe.

Are all Neilsen viewers this dumb?

Young Sheldon is the new spin off, not the name of an episode.

Well excuse me for not knowing about a spin off of a show I don't regularly watch. Quit your bitching, jerk.

legolas0008 posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

What's that?

It's what the Nielsen Audio program used to be called.

Oh, cool! Thanks for telling me that. I'll have to pick your brain about that later.

Sorry. It's just people like you are why good shows get cancelled. Don't be a Nielsen family if your not gonna bother to watch a wide variety of good programming.
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You're missing the point entirely. What you consider good is completely subjective. I watched what I wanted because that was the purpose of the program. Unfettered observance of modern viewing habits. If it got cancelled, maybe it wasn't that good to begin with. I'll say it again: quit your bitching.
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SableWolfAngel posted...

You're missing the point entirely. What you consider good is completely subjective. I watched what I wanted because that was the purpose of the program. Unfettered observance of modern viewing habits. If it got cancelled, maybe it wasn't that good to begin with. I'll say it again: quit your bitching.

But how could you know because you didnt even know it existed.

And btw it was the best viewership of the networks fall premieres so the shows gonna be fine. Just really odd that you want to represent viewers when obviously you have very niche tastes.
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Bad advertisement. If I didn't hear about it, it didn't catch my attention like it should have.

Niche viewers need to be represented, too. And I'm not that niche. I watched Family Guy, American Dad!, Rick and Morty, Impractical Jokers, Adam Ruins Everything, Robot Chicken, and other mainstream shows.
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What's your favourite anime?

TheMarthKoopa posted...

What's your favourite anime?

Wolf's Rain.
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N1NJAREB0RN posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

mario2000 posted...

did you watch young sheldon

I don't really know the names of the episodes, but maybe.

Are all Neilsen viewers this dumb?

Young Sheldon is the new spin off, not the name of an episode.

Are all TV elitists douche bags?
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has someone ever came up to you and offered you a bribe to watch their show and improve their ratings?
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Me and my college roommates were a Nielson "family" for a year a couple years ago. They installed their junk in our TVs and in our computers. I was like "Money? Cool!" but it wasn't kinda dumb to have to swap that display of who's watching what TV thing. It was barely an inconvenience but it was also so little money that I dunno why I agreed, lol.
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josifrees posted...

has someone ever came up to you and offered you a bribe to watch their show and improve their ratings?

No because I was under legal contract to not talk about it with anyone so that exact scenario wouldn't happen. That would breach my Nielsen identity and terminate my contract.

Xelltrix posted...

Me and my college roommates were a Nielson "family" for a year a couple years ago. They installed their junk in our TVs and in our computers. I was like "Money? Cool!" but it wasn't kinda dumb to have to swap that display of who's watching what TV thing. It was barely an inconvenience but it was also so little money that I dunno why I agreed, lol.

Lazybones. I didn't mind that at all! I thought it was fun!
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CamillaFE posted...

How much did they pay you?

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Why is this still a thing in the age of the internet? Why don't they just put something in the cable box to trasmit back what is being watched if they don't do that already?
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Returning_CEmen posted...

CamillaFE posted...

How much did they pay you?

Us, it was like 200 bucks like three but we split it four ways so... It's nice a free money, I guess but meh.
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Xelltrix posted...

Returning_CEmen posted...

CamillaFE posted...

How much did they pay you?

Us, it was like 200 bucks like three but we split it four ways so... It's nice a free money, I guess but meh.

A week, a month?
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Returning_CEmen poste...

CamillaFE posted...

How much did they pay you?

I already answered this question.

1337toothbrush posted...

Why is this still a thing in the age of the internet? Why don't they just put something in the cable box to trasmit back what is being watched if they don't do that already?

That's exactly how it works... mostly. I don't get your question.
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SableWolfAngel posted...

That's exactly how it works... mostly. I don't get your question.

He means why are there still Nielson families that need to be selected and given a Nielson box, why doesn't every single cable box automatically track ratings and such and give a significantly more accurate view of ratings.
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Gamer99z posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

That's exactly how it works... mostly. I don't get your question.

He means why are there still Nielson families that need to be selected and given a Nielson box, why doesn't every single cable box automatically track ratings and such and give a significantly more accurate view of ratings.

I think that would be too much data to process and too many errors in the system. I represented the single home, female, 20 year old demographic. They just need samples of what those demographics are watching.
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SableWolfAngel posted...

Gamer99z posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

That's exactly how it works... mostly. I don't get your question.

He means why are there still Nielson families that need to be selected and given a Nielson box, why doesn't every single cable box automatically track ratings and such and give a significantly more accurate view of ratings.

I think that would be too much data to process and too many errors in the system. I represented the single home, female, 20 year old demographic. They just need samples of what those demographics are watching.

Huh I hadn't really considered what it would do to the demographics, it would make that significantly harder to monitor and probably less accurate if it required people to self enter it in the same way YouTube demographic monitoring is a joke.
I guess it would be more accurate for overall ratings but at the cost of demographics but even then that also begs the question why don't they use some method for gathering metadata about overall ratings and watch time in a format that would only require mere kilobytes of data to be transmitted but still keep the Nielson boxes simply for trying to get accurate measurements of demographics and such.
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Returning_CEmen posted...

Xelltrix posted...

Returning_CEmen posted...

CamillaFE posted...

How much did they pay you?

Us, it was like 200 bucks like three but we split it four ways so... It's nice a free money, I guess but meh.

A week, a month?

Three times, I meant to say.
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Gamer99z posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

Gamer99z posted...

SableWolfAngel posted...

That's exactly how it works... mostly. I don't get your question.

He means why are there still Nielson families that need to be selected and given a Nielson box, why doesn't every single cable box automatically track ratings and such and give a significantly more accurate view of ratings.

I think that would be too much data to process and too many errors in the system. I represented the single home, female, 20 year old demographic. They just need samples of what those demographics are watching.

Huh I hadn't really considered what it would do to the demographics, it would make that significantly harder to monitor and probably less accurate if it required people to self enter it in the same way YouTube demographic monitoring is a joke.
I guess it would be more accurate for overall ratings but at the cost of demographics but even then that also begs the question why don't they use some method for gathering metadata about overall ratings and watch time in a format that would only require mere kilobytes of data to be transmitted but still keep the Nielson boxes simply for trying to get accurate measurements of demographics and such.

The fact that they have to track who is watching what and whether or not they're actually watching instead of just having the TV on is why it's important.

Anytime we stepped away from the TV long enough, it would blink and idle to show no one was watching to keep the ratings accurate. We also all had our own check-ins so they knew which member was watching what.

They also know the exact demographic when they go in so it makes for a pretty accurate picture. My apartment was four college males: one black, one Asian, two white/Jewish guys.
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You guys sure are helpful and fun to talk to! And thank goodness there's no sex questions this time. That was so weird last time.
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