Why is Nielsen a monopoly? Well, Arbitron collected television ratings up until some time in the early 1990s, but quit when it lost too many accounts to Nielsen. It is exorbitantly expensive to collect television ratings, especially if proper survey research procedure is followed: the Nielsen "families" must be randomly chosen, then screened to ensure there's no conflict of interest (a journalist for the local paper living in the household, etc.). Then, every single television set in the home must be wired with the Nielsen device, which is then connected to a phone line for retrieval of the data.
This is why the Nielsen national sample was only a couple thousand households for a long time. Now, it's much bigger. Last time I checked, the Nielsen national sample was about 25,000. Sweeps ratings are collected in the local markets by a diary system, where diaries are sent to households and the persons who live there are expected to write down all the shows they watch, and who was watching them, for a whole week. Then mail them back, supposedly on time. Then their handwriting needs to be decoded and the data entered into a database. Multiply that by the 200+ markets they collect sweeps diaries for, and you get a sense of the scope of the enterprise. Last time I checked, Nielsen tabulated something like 1.6 million diaries each sweep. I think a fair question to ask would be: can someone come up with a better technology by which to collect ratings? Nielsen is reportedly working on a few ideas, such as a device embedded in a watch or cell phone that notices what you're exposed to wherever you go (the local bar, the office TV, the waiting room TV at the pediatrician's, etc.). And is Nielsen doing enough to measure non-standard television watching (such as watching stuff on Hulu, station/network websites, downloads to iPods, dorm rooms on campus, etc.)? More than you wanted to know, I'm sure..... KR --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
