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Nielsen to add online viewing of TV shows into ratings number
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Starting in fall 2010, the Nielsen ratings will be based not only on broadcast views but online views as well.According to Variety, "Nielsen intends to introduce a service that will combine TV and online viewing of shows into a single rating." This is in response to network executives pressuring Nielsen to find a way to factor in online viewers to their ratings.
What does this mean for online viewers? Your viewing of a show does not count towards the ratings unless you watch a version that includes all the commercials from the television broadcast. This means services like Hulu or video on the network sites will not enter into the ratings because they carry usually one-quarter of the commercials the TV broadcast carries.
The programs this new system would work with are the Fancast Xfinity online video service launched in Dec. 2009 and the new TV Everywhere service that Time Warner Cable is testing. Nielsen plans to gather their online data from 7,500 of the 12,000 households in its National People Meter Sample.
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Well that's stupid if it doesn't factor in Hulu and the networks' own site views. Thats where most people go to watch their online episodes.
Nielson ratings are useless anyways. They don't track everyone, they don't even track the majority. They only track the few thousand homes that have those little Nielsen boxes. That means that for the majority of us it doesn't matter if we watch a show or not since it doesn't get factored into the ratings. The ratings only reflect the few thousand homes selected to be Nielsen homes, and that is gonna be the case for online views too.
Do any sites even show all the commercials? The most I have seen is Hulu, and they only show like 1 minute total of ads for a 23 minute show.
I see the article even mentions this. Nielson takes those 12,000 households and uses them to basically guess what millions of people are watching. So about 30,000 people basically control the fate of TV shows. That means a primetime show could be watched by like 9 million people, but Nielson ratings could say 2 million because not many of these Nielsen families watched it (or vice-versa, Nielson ratings could be vastly higher than the actual amount). The only way to get accurate ratings would be to find a way to automatically track every TV (but then people would complain about "Big Brother" tracking them).
If it meant it stayed free i would not mind if programs on hulu had all the national comercials that run during a show. It still would be less than the live showing that has local and network commercials. This way they could count it and all the shows i watch on there would get there due ha
Still doesn't help those shows that allegedly have low ratings.
Although I sometimes suspect otherwise, the statistical model for Nielsen ratings would indicate that their ratings should approximate the broadcast viewing within a very small percentage.
That being said, the broadcast model is becoming outdated with DVR usage, online viewing, etc. We want to watch the shows on our own time without 15+ minutes of commercials every hour. Traditional broadcasting will need to change to stay relevant and profitable. It can be done...remember AM radio? Unfortunately, there are also quite a few that couldn't make the change (ie-records stores)..
Where else would we watch online besides network sites or hulu??
I couldn't TELL you where to go to watch a show with full commercials. Try again.
A major step in the right direction!
TJ Spkye -So about 30,000 people basically control the fate of TV shows.
That is the sad truth, networks put so much into what tv show ratings are, yet they are so inaccurate. Oh and good luck trying to get people to watch the shows online with full commercials. Why would you do that when there are so many other sites to watch without them?
All you people HELLO!! Statistical samples are not inaccurate. and for the ppl watching shows with no commercials--they don't care about you because you don't see the ads. jeesh!