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Television Media Technology

Nielsen Adapting To Modern TV-Watching 112

Posted by Zonk from the no-more-rabbit-ears dept.
Ant wrote to mention a C|Net story discussing fundamental changes in how the Nielsen company tracks viewership. From the article: "CNET says that the Nielsen company is finally taking one of several steps aimed at adapting to the new television/TV audience (those who use TiVo or another service to record prime time shows for viewing later) on December 26th, 2005. Ratings will be broken out by how shows are watched--live, later in the day or within a seven-day period. Over time, Nielsen will also move to measure viewing that takes place via iPods, cellular/cell phones, laptops, and other digital devices that are gaining TV privileges. The company also will track audiences for on-demand fare. The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up."
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Nielsen Adapting To Modern TV-Watching More

Nielsen Adapting To Modern TV-Watching

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  • Very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:34PM (#14174312) Homepage
    I wonder if Nielsen will start monitoring BitTorrent trackers (not to bust people, but simply to measure popularity.)

    I remember at one point, between the top two torrents of LOST, there were 5,000-10,000 seeders, 10-15k completes, and 20-30k people leeching within the first 12-24 hours.

    • One other thing I thought of (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:48PM (#14174373) Homepage
      Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast. It would allow media content to be distributed MUCH more easily. I recall someone claiming that BitTorrent was now consisting of 25-50% of Internet backbone traffic - Imagine how much that could be reduced if multicast were used, given that probably 90% of that 25-50% are duplicate packets, if not more.

      Unfortunately, we may not ever see IP multicast in its present form on the backbone. It requires too much additional memory in routers, and I have yet to see ANY information on how to find a free multicast address and reserve it for use. It's simply too hard for the average programmer/user to use.

      I saw a couple of links to a Japanese multicast project known as Xcast, which would simply put multiple destination IP addresses in a packet, while it isn't as scalable as IP multicast, it's a hell of a lot easier to use. Unfortunately, since it isn't quite standardized yet, it's basically only supported on a handful of test networks, and I wouldn't be surprised if it stays that way.

      In this day and age of mass media distribution, some form of multicast, even a limited one that only allows 8-16 destinations per packet, is desperately needed - so why the hell is there still no viable solution?

      • Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.

        Maybe a little offtopic, but this is a technial question that I've always had -- how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?

        I ask because if you can't account for lost packets then it's going to make your bittorrent idea a lot harder. I suppose it would work well for a stream that you wanted tens of thousands of peo

        • Take a look at Newsgroups and how things are released there... if one client doesn't get all the packets, then there are always parity files that are distributed with the releases... Now, assuming you wnated to add multicast support to Bittorrent, if a client misses a few packets they just go back and request it again... But I doubt you would want to use regular old BT... it isn't designed for Multicast networks...
        • how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets?

          That's a problem for a higher-layer protocol. I previously worked for a company that received live stock-market data via multicast. Each message included a sequence count, and if you did not receive some messags then you would ask the exchange to re-transmit a range of sequence counts. These re-transmissions would be mixed in with the regular data stream, with a flag to indicate that they were retransmissions.

          I haven't worked with multicast
        • Various possible solutions:

          Clients can request individual packets are resent to them alone (works well if packet loss is very low).

          Server continuously re-broadcasts data for a few days, so if you miss it the first time, you can get it the second/third/fourth/whateverth time (generally referred to as carousel).

          Forward Error Codes: http://rfc3453.x42.com/ [x42.com]

          • Clients can request individual packets are resent to them alone (works well if packet loss is very low).

            But it works badly when lots of clients observe packet loss. The worst case is if you have many many clients listening to a multicast source, and there is loss on the line between the source and its ISP. The source might be drowned in retransmit requests, much like in a DDOS attack.

            Carousels are fine and dandy, but if you have missed just one chunk of a large file, you may have a long wait, and lots of

        • Multicast is at a lower layer than UDP and TCP, but due to the nature of multicast, it will not actually work with TCP, only with connectionless protocols such as UDP.

          You're correct in that dropped packets would cause a problem for BT, since everyone needs the entire file. That said, if a client even received only 50% of a file via multicast, that would be 50% less that would eventually need to be handled via unicast, or via another multicast transmission. In reality, probably most clients would get 80% o
          • Forgive me for not knowing what i'm talking about, but why does it seem like people are talking about using bittorent as either multicast or non multicast? Couldnt you say have it do both? If 100 people download the same file via multicast, would i be wrong to assume not everyone would be missing the same packets? It seems like with the first goaround, there would be a minimum of one complete file, so while waiting for the next multicast, the various bittorrent clients could fight it out peer to peer style
            • You pretty much summed up what I said by having a fallback of either unicast (i.e. the way it's done now) or multicast rebroadcasting.

              Initially a full multicast transmission of the file would be done, and after that, the tracker could look and see which parts of the file were missing at the greatest number of clients. The tracker would then have the clients which DO have that file retransmit the parts that most clients need with another round of multicast broadcast. Once less than a certain percentage of
              • ok sorry, no coffee + out of cigarettes = poorly worded redundant posts.

              • Initially a full multicast transmission of the file would be done, and after that, the tracker could look and see which parts of the file were missing at the greatest number of clients.

                If there are large numbers of clients, this operation could be very expensive for the tracker.

                The other consideration with this approach, unfortunately, is that there is a serious mismatch between the rate at which the fastest-connected and slowest-connected clients can absorb the multicast traffic. If the source transmits

                • As to keeping track of what clients have what being expensive for the tracker - It doesn't seem THAT expensive compared to the amount of data being transferred because that's basically what the BT tracker does.

                  The issue of slow downloaders is a good one, but even if only 20-30 of the initial clients could download at the full broadcast rate of the initial seed, there would be a HUGE performance improvement, because there would be 20-30 seeders in a very short time.

                  Note that the problem you mention is where

        • how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?

          I believe Forward Error Correction [wikipedia.org] can account for missing and dropped packets. From Wikipedia: "FEC is accomplished by adding redundancy to the transmitted information using a predetermined algorithm." I remember someone presenting this solution at the IETF many years ago.

      • BitTorrent was now consisting of 25-50% of Internet backbone traffic

        I'm not sure Multicast would improve things much... It would only work if a large number of people on neighboring networks want to download the SAME file at roughly the SAME time...

        It would probably be good for streaming TV over the internet and such. But for bit-torrent as it is, I don't see how it would help....

        NOW, what could be interesting is to make a "batch" version of BitTorrent. Users would queue up the files they wanted to down

        • Well bittorrent has many uses. One of which is for an individual to distribute a file to many people (AKA 3dgamers downloads for example) lets say that the main distribution point is sending the files bit by bit in order in a multicast style setup, and you join in during the middle of a cast, you simply start downloading from the middle (because bittorrent is designed to handle mixed up pieces downloaded out of order) till then end, from there you can either wait for the cast to restart or download the miss

      • Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.

        Some do. Ask yours. There are two principal availability models for native multicast that I know of. Both require asking your ISP to talk sparse-mode PIM and to exchange multicast NLRI with you via BGP. At least one large scale provider charges a nominal fee for doing this at all, at and least one large scale provider does this for free but caps the amount of multicast traffic you can send without making an extra arrangement.

        The principa

    • Considering that the scale of ratings TV stations care about are usually one or two orders of magnitude larger than that, and Lost is a very highly rated show, it won't be any time soon.
    • I doubt they'll try to track online downloads, there are companies like BigChampagne that specifically do this stuff, and the various **AA's already get info from them on what's being traded.

      One of the main reasons Nielsen backed off the idea of changing their measurement methods a while ago, is that it scared the hell out of TV execs. The TV people were desperately afraid that any change in Nielsen's methods would change the viewer #s & would have a major effect on advertising $$$.

      (TFA should be modde

      • Re:Very interesting (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:17PM (#14174761) Journal
        Interesting, but those execs would be shooting themselves in the foot. Advert $$ depends on ROI. (in the long term, the market will relax to this position, but in the short term, companies may actively be measuring and optimizing) So improperly measuring viewership is a fast road to losing all advertising dollars.

        What I've been wondering though is why we have neilson anymore at all. With the advent of digital cable, it would seem to me that it's now possible to monitor directly the viewing habits of millions of people. That's a large sample. If made optional, i would even opt-in to just such monitoring, since it would mean that every time i watched my favorite shows i'd be casting a vote to keep it on the air.
        • Mod parent up.

          WIth so many digital cable boxes out there, monitoring what exactly what people watch should be so much easier now. Neilsen has such a small sample that I'm sure it's very inaccurate. They're going more for an accurate demo-mix than raw numbers. If the cable company got into the tracking business, they'd make a lot of money, and I'm convinced it would help good shows thrive. People are watching Arrested Development, we just don't know about.

          And... end of rant.

        • With cable companies and dish networks pushing DVRs how are companies using Neilson since many of those DVRs allow users to skip over commercials? Personally I have been using MythTV for almost a year now. I never watch live TV anymore and as a result I see very few commercials. If I understand correctly broadcasters use Neilson ratings to set the price of commercials on different shows. With DVRs becoming more common allowing more people to skip commercials won't this make Neilson ratings useless and u
          • You don't know what your talking about, let me tell you, I know someone who worked for Neilson.. and umm.. ok end of joke.

            But seriously I do, he described how this new system worked a year ago (when they were debating rolling it out) basically as they can't get inside the DVR to track your info. The new system uses a special box that does a combination of pattern recognition and special closed caption style program information encoding. The preferable method obviously is for the program to include its own i
            • Please please tell me they are including information like this on broadcasts! It should make commercial detection much easier. Instead of being able to automatically skip about 90% of all commercials we can get 100% of them. That wuold be good! :)
            • Edit:

              They also use some basic pattern recognition for local commerical and other small shows that are not opting to include this information.
    • Oh, great. So now they're going to have to report that "Bangbus episode 128 was the third most popular broadcast this week" . . .
    • I wonder if Nielsen will start monitoring BitTorrent trackers
      Nielsen ratings are used primarily to set prices for ad segments.

      I'm sure that people go out of their way to strip ads/use dvd rips for torrents. (IE they're screwed on two fronts.)

    • Re:Very interesting (Score:2, Informative)

      by nielsenite ( 935918 )
      Is Nielsen interested in BT?

      Short answer: Yes, no, and maybe.

      (disclosure: I am a Nielsen employee based out of their GTIC facility in Florida. Beautiful place BTW.)

      In the past, Nielsen has recorded time shifting as viewing. After all, why go through the trouble of setting your VCR to record a show if you're not going to watch it? And then TiVo had to mess it all up. It constantly records things you don't even ask for. Even if you do end up watching it eventually, it could be a week or a month later.

      C
    • As a former broadcaster, I think this is a step in the right direction. However, the rating system television will still be extremely flawed.

      The current system relies on moths that the broadcasting industry call, "sweeps." Most notably of these months is the May sweeps since a large number of ad agencies buy their advertisements on this books ratings. This system allows the television companies to ignore a number of months and play repeats and poorly produced programs, but still get good ratings. Basically,

  • I did the Nielson ratings for five years... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:39PM (#14174340) Journal
    And the only thing they didn't know about my tv watching was exactly what I was watching if I was just playing a tape. But they sure knew which programs I had recorded for later viewing. It was one of the many subjects that came up during the orientation.

  • This could change everything... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mr_zorg ( 259994 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:41PM (#14174350)
    Hooray! I've been one of the new Nielsen TiVo households for about a year now and I'm thrilled to see them finally starting to break things out this way. The best part is it's easy, I don't have to do anything different, they just collect the data from TiVo. Finally shows like Mythbusters, Iron Chef, etc., might finally get some respect!
    • Before TiVo came out, I wondered how people got to vote for Nielson ratings? There were so many good shows I loved, but according to Nielson, nobody else did. Off Centre for example was a friday night staple a few years back. So was Class of 1993. But both of these shows were axed. If the Nielson ratings included my viewing habits, maybe these shows would still be on the air.

      I wonder how marketing firms will use this new TiVo data? Will they discount the value of a show which was recorded and not watched

      • I don't know how they're handling other DVRs... As for how it was done before, they would install this little box in your house and every time the light lit up you had to write down what you were watching at the time in a log book. Then they'd collect the books somehow (fedex?). From what I've heard you got a pitiful amount of compensation for your efforts. So, as you can imagine, the majority of people who would be willing do that that amount of work for next to nothing are not the kind of people who w

  • What about those of us on Usenet? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:46PM (#14174370)
    TV pirates are people too.

  • It's about time! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PurifyYourMind ( 776223 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:50PM (#14174381) Homepage
    I always doubted the reliability of Nielsen ratings, especially given the cancellation of so many great shows (e.g. Family Guy.. for awhile anyway). Moreover, I have never, ever known anyone who's been in a so-called "Nielsen family". I guess my friends and I aren't average enough to make it into the sampling demographic.

    One reason advertisers loved the web (at first, at least) was because it's possible to get exact numbers of "viewers", know what viewers are doing (clicking through, clicking then ordering, etc.), and not miss any viewers simply because they didn't get lucky enough to be sampled. I can't imagine being an advertiser trying to track my television ad results... what, survey everyone who walks in my store?

    • I had a Nielsen box in my house for a while. Later on, I actually found out it had been an accident of sorts, and it had actually been intended for a more "normal" family down the street.

      I fear that I may be partially responsible for the ever smaller section of TV listings on the TV Guide Channel, as I used to leave it (it was actually the Preview Channel at the time) on for hours at a time when I was out of the room to confuse "the man".

      • I don't really know about the Neilsen system, but isn't the point of being monitored to make sure that the television companies can more accurately give you TV that you want to watch (of coures, so they can sell more ads)?

        By sabotaging your input to Neilen, aren't you sabotaging your own 'vote' to the TV agencies? or maybe I'm just naieve =)

        • By sabotaging your input to Neilen, aren't you sabotaging your own 'vote' to the TV agencies? or maybe I'm just naieve =)

          No, you're not being naive. That was sort of the point of my post, though I could have put it more clearly.

    • The problem is that "great" and "popular" have never been all that tightly correlated, and that there are demographics far larger than yours with different tastes.
    • I guess my friends and I aren't average enough to make it into the sampling demographic.
      Doesn't Neilson require you to be white trash to qualify? ;-)
  • Still no wat for them to track my TV usage on my PC? I use my AIM Radeon quite often.

    -bZj
  • These steps won't change the television companies' opinions on these new methods of watching TV, because their main use of these ratings has been to determimine how much they can charge for advertisisng time. A lot of PVR recordings can fast forward commercials, TV shows for ipods that Apple sells have no ads and anything downloaded via Bittorrent skips the ads. When consumers take control, first on their agenda is getting rid of ads, I'd daresay moreso than mere timeshifting. Considering that these network
    • This could lead the broadcasters stepping up their rather obnoxious practice of putting advertising around the edges of the screen during programming, as bittorrent downloaded shows can't get around that.

      It is possible to cut off a number of pixels around the outside when you transcode using a number of apps. Main use of it so far (or at least when I ad-strip and transcode my own digital tv recordings, anyway) is to clip off black bars around a transmitted signal, such as you get when they force a different
  • Good. Maybe, just maybe this will help end the new era of TV stations stretching their shows one (or like Cold Case, several) minutes later than their scheduled run time. I swear they started runing these long to screw with TiVos and VCRs.
    • Maybe, just maybe this will help end the new era of TV stations stretching their shows one (or like Cold Case, several) minutes later than their scheduled run time.

      Cold Case doesn't run long because the show is more than 1 hour long, Cold Case runs because of the god damn football games running long, then that pushes 60 Minutes back and then Cold Case can start anywhere from 5-45 minutes late. I wrote a letter to CBS about this idiotic schedule they have but I of course received no response.. why would I

      • Setting aside my opinion of 60 Minutes for a moment, the idea of placing a crap show after the football game is stupid. You've got all this viewership watching your station, then you shoo them away by switching to, say, a Mork and Mindy rerun that's already in progress. That's stupid. What you want to do is keep the viewership by following the game with another good show, and then another. To hell with the schedule, the only thing that matters is the number of eyes watching. Once that number drops down

  • Fantastic! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2005 @02:53PM (#14174400)
    With respect to television usage, which is pretty much just ambient/background news stream, and not internet usage, I've wanted for the longest time for my provider to track not just my "usage" (customer watched show X on channel Y at time Z), but my NON-usage (customer was watching show X on channel Y and CHANGED channels at time Z, and returned or did not return).

    Why? So they can match that with my desire to avoid StupidShit (tm). At times I'll bounce from CNN to Fox to MSNBC to Bloomberg when the same stupid commercial is played for the ninth time that hour.

    Heh, " To confirm you're not a script,
    please type the word in this image:" ... the word? Itches. Yes, yes it does.

    • Re:Fantastic! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by penttan ( 720818 )
      Dislcaimer: I work for a company that does television audience measurement (in Europe). In most countries the viewing data is collected by a peoplemeter device installed at the panel household's tv set. It automatically identifies the channel and can measure viewing behaviour second by second, although one minute is usually the smallest reported time. This kind of data makes analyzing all the things you mentioned (and much more) possible. For example, the gain and loss analysis of a program shows minute b

  • ...what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by greyjoy ( 912923 )

    The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up.

    This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before? It's always nice to give voice to wishful thinking, but, c'mon, at least let your excuse have some relev

    • This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before?

      From the summary (in fact, the exact part you quote!), "The audience is taking control." Note the absence of the word "companies". They're talking about people taking control of their TV and how they watch it, not writhing throngs of couch potatoes taking over the local NBC affiliate.

      Also, I hope they tak

  • Nielsen? Still needed? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @03:02PM (#14174453) Homepage Journal
    One of my employees is a Nielsen viewer. I can't believe those guys are still going to keep ticking.

    With video watching moving towards an on-demand basis, will advertisers really need to hire a company to track viewer preferences? The best thing advertisers can do is replac Tivo/MCE/Myth/whatever with completely free tuner/PVR units. Tivo can already tell advertisers what commercials were watched or skipped, what parts of a TV show were paused or reviewed, what channels are bounced between most often, etc. As TV becomes quickly available through iTunes or direct download, IPTV, and other "right now" provisions, we'll see our information traded in exchange for free TV.

    I still believe that TV show production companies will find ways to offer advertising and spyware-free shows (a la the DVD format) for those willing to pay extra. Remember, advertising only exists for shows that are being watched in real time. Video taping, downloading, PVR, whatever means ads will likely be skipped or deleted altogether. We will definitely see more product placement as well as more pop-up advertising on top of TV shows as time goes on. Technology is quickly destroying the efficacy of advertising, so advertising will either have to morph or be left in the dust.

    Nielsen, IMHO, is already being put into the incinerator. Their services were nice (*pat on head*) but its time for the new kid to play.

  • I remember... (Score:4, Funny)

    by evil agent ( 918566 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @03:09PM (#14174479)
    When I was just a little kid and I thought that just by tuning in to a show I would be increasing their ratings. Ah, the innocence/ignorance of youth... Please tell me I wasn't the only one!!
  • For those unaware, Nielsen has been allowing people to sign up directly on their TiVo's for a while now.

  • Please? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rydia ( 556444 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @03:28PM (#14174542)
    Can we please restrain ourselves from ridiculously superficial overgeneralizations in articles? The article submission was great until the last sentences... "The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up." In addition to being gramatically incorrect, is both inaccurate and perjurative to the whole submission, ruining what should have been a pretty interesting intro to an article about a shift in Nielsen's ratings, which is pretty interesting and somewhat important stuff. Is the audience really taking control? Because we can time-shift? We can do that with VCRs. Because we can do things with live television? Kind of, but, again, you could do something similar with a VCR. Are the TV companies scrambling to catch up? Nielsen is changing their methodology because these gadgets are leading to UNDER-reporting of audiences, so doesn't that indicate that they're not doing so badly after all?

    There's been a rash of this lately, too... The online dictionary and "finally someone realizes that language evolves" is another egregious and recent one. If you want to comment on the story, comment in the comments. Just report the story in the submission. Saves us from reading something that is often stupid and taints the whole discussion from the get-go.
    • I loved the one yesterday about how it's impossible to underestimate the impact that Babylon 5 of all things had on television. Laughable.

  • Stop announcing the measurement days (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @03:32PM (#14174565) Homepage
    I wish Nielson could figure out that pre-announcing the date of US sweeps week ruins TV viewing. For one week out of the year every channel simultaneously has great programming. Then for the other fifty one weeks it sucks. Advertisers are stupid for believing that sweeps week is at all representative of viewing patterns. Imagine how advertising rates would have been set if 9/11 had happened during sweeps week - cable news would have had top share.
    • I wish Nielson could figure out that pre-announcing the date of US sweeps week ruins TV viewing.
      We're working on it. Google for "local people meter". That will put an end to sweeps in most markets.

      While you're at it, tell your congressman to kill off H.R.3298 and S.1372 so we can actually do it.

  • MythTV disqualified me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mmontour ( 2208 ) <mail@mmontour.net> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:00PM (#14174702)
    Earlier this year I was invited to become a Nielsen viewer (in Canada). The first problem was that I did not have a telephone landline, and their box needed one in order to phone home with its data. They initially said there was nothing they could do, but a couple of months later they called back and offered to pay for the landline if I had one installed.

    They then asked for details about my TVs and such, down to the brands and model numbers. This is becuase they had to hook up monitoring equipment to measure the channel selected by the tuner, whether the VCR was playing or recording, etc. Everything was OK until we got to my MythTV box (with PVR-350 card). They could not monitor it properly, so we had to call the whole thing off. The technician (who was quite impressed with what MythTV could do) said that they might have ways to monitor such setups in the future, but he wasn't sure about it.

  • Oh well.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Presidential ( 805793 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:07PM (#14174726)
    Too damn late for Farscape or Futurama...

  • Out of control (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Columcille ( 88542 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:08PM (#14174733)
    The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up."

    This isn't a paradigm shift, it's expansion of technology. Media entertainment is still media entertainment and people still watch it to be entertained. The ways people can access that media have expanded, but there has been no overall shift as a result.

    Also, audiences aren't taking control. These extensions of media access are tickling media providers to death. Even Tivo, while cutting out advertising, reflects the audience demand for More! More! The problems Tivo presents to a media provider are only temporary. Media providers are recognizing the audience's unquenchable thirst for more! more! more! and they are finding ways to make even more money off of that thirst. It isn't victory of the audience, it's victory of the provider.

    • Re:Out of control (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Also, audiences aren't taking control.

      EXACTLY.. there's only one way to "take control" of television: don't watch it. As soon as you plop down and stare, somebody else is in the driver's seat.

      I'm not against TV but don't be fooled: finding MORE ways to squeeze MORE video, advertising, and $$$ spent into your life is not "control". In corporate america, TV-viewing controls YOU!

      It reminds me of cell phone adverts that talk about "freedom" .. our new phone/new service/extended coverage gives you more "

  • We shall not cease from exploitation. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Leontes ( 653331 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:10PM (#14174745)
    I was a Nielsen Television watcher for about year and a half, ending about a year ago. Instead of using my people meter while I watched television, I downloaded the shows to watch them on my computer. During this time, both Enterprise and Wonderfalls, shows I enjoyed immensely, were cancelled.

    Although I drained the ratings , which would have been higher should I have actually physically watched the television, I felt it was important since I was representing those of us who had the technology to bypass television completely. I explained this to the Neilsen folks, and they weren't interested in my alternative viewing habits. Concurrently, I also downloaded and watched the first season of the apprentice, with it's integrated product placements. That exposure, from a rating point of view, possibly should have been counted, but there is no way of them measuring that. Even with this new system, they still won't count imbedded commercial watching. Microsoft, for example, paid a pretty penny to be included in the latest episode of the apprentice.

    I'm glad Neilsen is finally catching up with technology. I suspect that ratings will shift pretty dramatically when DVRs are used primarily rate the shows. Commercial watching, however, will be seen as happening much less, which I suppose is appropriate since those of that can, do watch as few commercials as possible. Sadly, prefering to watch content and even being pretty unwilling to watch commercials may in the long run prevent content geared to those kinds of individuals from being created. No watching commercials = low ratings = not enough money to produce. Yet I still do everythign I can to limit down commercial watching as much as possible. I realize that may constitute copyright infringement, but I still enjoy the entertainment so much more without having to hear 'these important messages.'

    • Re:We shall not cease from exploitation. (Score:5, Informative)

      by brxndxn ( 461473 ) on Saturday December 03, 2005 @04:27PM (#14174792)
      You bastard!!! You got Enterprise cancelled!!!

      Every dumbass knows that Nielson is just a stupid shallow representation of the idiots of the United States.. And, you, supposedly beeing a geek, should know that. You should've had your TV timer set to automatically turn the damn thing on during Enterprise and off after Enterprise.. It doesn't matter if you were watching it or not... You represented something like 1,000,000 geeks and you decided some random measurement that Neilson doesn't yet measure was more important.. Shame on you.

      Why be a Nielson kiddie if you're not even going to do your TV watching or purposeful misrepresentation through the damn Nielson system? At least make it SEEM like you were a geek.. Instead, you made it seem like geeks are unmarketable through the current system (ya.. maybe so.. but who cares) and have no money to spend.. and they watch no shows. Thus, Nielson people can readily say, "Hey.. we need more stupid reality shows because smart people don't watch TV."

      Ass. I hate you.

    • I was a Nielsen Television watcher for about year and a half, ending about a year ago. Instead of using my people meter while I watched television, I downloaded the shows to watch them on my computer. During this time, both Enterprise and Wonderfalls, shows I enjoyed immensely, were cancelled.

      You can expect about a dozen brawny Wonderfalls fans to show up at your door and beat the crap out of you in about ten minutes. :) It's your fault I don't get to watch Caroline Dhavernas on TV! (Good job with Enterpr

  • audiences taking control? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Petrox ( 525639 ) <pp502.nyu@edu> on Saturday December 03, 2005 @05:15PM (#14174971) Homepage
    Let's take a closer look at this breathless summary:

    Nielsen will also move to measure viewing that takes place via iPods, cellular/cell phones, laptops, and other digital devices that are gaining TV privileges. The company also will track audiences for on-demand fare. The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up.

    If by "taking control" you mean "getting permission" then the only 'catching-up' going on here is in how quickly content-owners can implement acceptable (to them) access controls for the proliferation and fragmentation of potential TV-viewing media.

  • I am amazed that no geeks have even asked HOW they plan to monitor all the iPods, PVRs and TV enabled cell phones. Does everyone out there think that Nielsen will try to strap a PeopleMeter onto all of these gadgets? Of course not! The "new" technology that they are coming out with and represents a "paradigm shift" for them is a beeper sized gizmo that PEOPLE must wear that records sound samples and compresses them along with a timestamp. These sound samples will capture an inaudible (to humans) beacon

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