TiVo is apparently moving farther into Nielsen territory. Specifically, it’s launching local-market measurement this summer, which is itself uninteresting except to network affiliates, advertisers, and the hardest-core TV ratings geeks. But the bigger issue is that TiVo is continuing to creep into the ratings business, having already launched a national service in February 2007. It’s always made far more sense for DVRs to do the work once relegated to "Nielsen families," whom the company chooses at random to stand in for the entire population. (And as my coworker Tim Stack has repeatedly asked, "Do you know anyone who’s a Nielsen family?" Who are these people?) Granted, Nielsen has made strides in measuring stuff like DVR usage and even minute-by-minute commercial viewing. But TiVo measures every move all of its users make, which just makes more sense in this technologically advanced entertainment age. There’s no doubt how many people have viewed a given YouTube clip; it seems absurd that we don’t have that kind of accuracy for ratings, which determine which shows live and die.
But don’t count Nielsen out just yet. The old faithful TV ratings service is still the only game in town when it comes to demographics. TiVo’s system is, and will remain, anonymous — which also brings up the little matter of Big Brother syndrome. How do we feel about TiVo, even anonymously, recording users’ every move and zapping it to some database? (That’s already been happening to some extent, mind you — this local move can just slice it into smaller pieces and, well, give us an excuse to reflect on this some more.) Another issue when it comes to demographics: Clearly these numbers will skew strongly toward folks who can afford not only a DVR, but a TiVo-branded DVR. That’s a very, very specific audience, no matter how big the sample is. As a Nielsen spokeswoman said in response to TiVo’s plans: "We don’t know anything beyond what has been written in the press. From press accounts, however, it seems clear that Nielsen offers an entirely different kind of service. Our ratings can be used as currency because they are based on representative samples that reflect the entire community, not just a subset of DVR users. Our ratings also provide value to buyers and sellers of ad time because they provide demographic breaks."
What do you think, PopWatchers? Would you rather see networks make decisions based on TiVo ratings than Nielsen numbers? Do you mind knowing your viewing habits are being tracked? Do you want TiVo users determining what lives or dies?
if it will save dollhouse, they can see everything i see. So what if i record bikini pirates III everytime its on cinemax…i dont rly care.
About time. A show’s life is measured by ratings. But with today’s technology, those ratings numbers are flawed. We need a way to mesure DVR and Tivo
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/04/20/tv-tonight-monday-april-20th-2009/
Two points:
1. When our TiVo finally died, Directv sent us a DVR Plus. We hate it – TiVo is far superior. I do love the idea of tracking viewing through TiVo, but they should include all DVR service.
2. We were ‘randomly’ chosen to particpate in the latest Arbitron radio ratings period. They couldn’t have used the word ‘random’ more often than they did. It was sort of a pain in the neck to keep the dairy for a week, and they called me daily to remind me to do it (I stopped answering the phone on the 3rd day). It does feel good to know that what you are listening to it being counted.
In response to the “Do you know anyone who is a Nielsen family?” I do! I know 2 – and it makes me even more mad!
They live down the street from each other (less than 5 houses away) in a super rural town. And they really don’t watch tv hardly at all. And the one family – it’s my aunt and she’s legally blind and can barely see the tv anymore. It really makes me really really mad. Because those two households are affecting what’s on tv and I know they don’t watch any of the good shows!
As a Tivo subscriber, I know that there is a ‘box to check’ to keep your watching habits private. I like them knowing what I do, it makes me feel like my ‘vote’ counts.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know the old Nielsen model won’t cut it anymore. I watch TV on DVR (sometimes several days or weeks later) and online, on Hulu.com, for instance. I hope they’re taking all of that into account when they consider whether a show is popular enough.
I have an idea for a show pilot called “The Nielsens”. It’s about the Nielsen Family. I’m not sure if it’s going to be scifi (There are 5 members of Nielsens. They have a plan) or one-camera comedy (five minutes of watching people watching TV, then a body gag out of nowhere), three-camera sitcom, or serial “horror” series with either a pair of possibly incestuous brothers or a heroine with large breasts.
I’ve been a Nielson “family” 2 times.
My old HS biology teacher was a Nielsen family growing up. Said guys in black suits showed up asking if they wanted to partake in a national survey.
There are two things that make me wonder about this.
One, will the advertisers who pay for network TV care about these numbers? I mean the way TV networks make money is that advertisers buy ad space, and those ads are shown to viewers. If tivo owners aren’t watching the ads, why would the advertisers care how many of them there are?
Secondly I wonder how important these numbers will be. I mean while Nielsen might not be that totally accurate, it is supposed to be a random sample of the population used to approximate the population as a whole. These numbers can actually be pretty accurate. Now with Tivo it wouldn’t be a random sample, it would be a sample of people who are either wealthy or impulsive enough to buy a Tivo and smart enough to hook it up. You can’t really extrapolate those numbers to get anything more.
I have a TiVo and it’s fine with me that they collect anonymous aggregated data if it will help keep the shows I watch on the air.
Advertisers should be alot more interested in what DVR and TiVo watchers are doing since as a narrower demographic, they have the money to spend on these entertainment technologies, which means as a group, they have money to spend on other things too.
beelkay, I am not sure a network would care as much if you watch a show on DVR. I mean networks make money by advertising dollars not by viewers (unlike premium cable). Those dollars are based on how many people watch the show live.
As far as watching a show online, I am pretty sure online ad rates are next to nothing. I mean if you think about it a top rated show on TV has 20-30 million viewers and can usually sell ads for in the ball park of 200,000 for 30 seconds. Now top rated shows on the internet usually probably have less than a million viewers than an ad could only be sold for $5-10,000, not really a lot of money for a network.
Personally, we need something that records what EVERY TV watches. Not in a creepy ‘Big Brother’ kind of way, but just so the numbers are accurate. How could they be more accurate than 100%?
I would love, love, love to be a neilsen family, but since there’s a snowball’s chance in hell for that to happen, please feel free to record my Tivo viewings. I understand the sampling error in a ‘self-selected’ subset like Tivo users, but that subset is probably composed of alot of technology-lovers (i.e. nerds) and therefore are watching all the good (in my opinion) TV shows anyway!
Has anyone been paying attention on Dollhouse? They keep saying things like the show is returning in 90 seconds. Having only 90 seconds of commercials seems ground-breaking to me. Other shows seems like they have 5 or more commercials in a row. I think that this DVR info will be very useful information for research. Does decreasing the number of commercials cause people to no longer skip commercials?