The Nielsen Family Is Dead 170
An anonymous reader writes "An article at Wired walks us through how the so-called Nielsen Family, responsible for deciding which shows were good and which were flops since the '70s, isn't the be-all, end-all of TV popularity anymore. Quoting: 'Over the years, the Nielsen rating has been tweaked, but it still serves one fundamental purpose: to gauge how many people are watching a given show on a conventional television set. But that's not how we watch any more. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, smartphone, tablet—none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the Nielsen rating. (In February Nielsen announced that this fall it would finally begin including Internet streaming to TV sets in its ratings.) And the TV experience doesn't stop when the episode ends. We watch with tablets on our laps so we can look up an actor's IMDb page. We tweet about the latest plot twist (discreetly, to avoid spoilers). We fill up the comments section of our favorite online recappers. We kibitz with Facebook friends about Hannah Horvath's latest paramour. We start Tumblrs devoted to Downton decor. We're engaging with a show even if we aren't watching it, but none of this behavior factors into Nielsen's calculation of its impact.'"
Re:No, we don't (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nielsen ratings Pirate Bay ratings (Score:5, Informative)
You can rig it. There's little to stop you from downloading something many times.
BitTorrent Trackers don't count downloads - they count the number of active seeders and leechers.
While you are connected to the tracker and downloading a file, your session will add 1 to the leech count. When the download completes, the leech count is decremented 1. If you delete/move this file and initiate another download, this will simply temporarily add 1 to the leech count again.
Sure it is game-able. You could have multiple clients on different ports simultaneously downloading and hope that the tracker doesn't amalgamate all connections from the same IP to count as one. This, however, would be very taxing on your connection not to mention extremely resource intensive, especially with the wide adoption of crypto in BitTorrent.
Even if this was actively rigged, would it be any worse off than the Nielsen system? Can we honestly believe that it is not completely rigged? The participants are known ahead of time. Is it not possible that they be chosen according a particular agenda or otherwise enticed.
Re:I've been a part of it (Score:4, Informative)
Neilson has stagnated along with Buggy Whip manufactures. Most of the posts here are in regards to Static TV which is dying. We still consume media and this created a vacuum. This is being rapidly filled by a competitor. -- Arbitron. Listen to MP3's.. they want to know. Listen to a radio at work? they want to know. Listen to the traffic report in your car on your commute? they want to know.
Now I carry a pager type device to listen to the encoded audio in broadcasts.. even if it is from a torrent, youtube, MP3, OTA, Cable..
http://www.arbitron.com/about/home.htm [arbitron.com]
And yes they pay you to carry the meter all day if you are in a test market. I expect them to continue to expand.
Re:Nielsen ratings Pirate Bay ratings (Score:4, Informative)
If it switches from ad-time buys to product-placement
Product placement can't always fill the needs of an advertiser. It works well for food, clothing, and cars among others. It's much less simple for things like insurance, otc drugs, or other TV shows. It makes syndication less attractive. And it's *terrible* for localization. There are plenty of smaller businesses that can afford local media buys but have neither the budget nor the desire for a national one. But with product placement, that's difficult at best.