The way the Nielsens measure the ratings, they are out of date, its full of holes, there could be way more viewers than they report, they put black boxes if homes of folks they select that they think represent the US viewing public.
I had some friends who had one, they did it because they got FREE cable for doing it,
Hole #1. My Friends freely admitted that they were not big tv viewers to the rep, we would only watch the weather channel and news channel, he said that’s ok I've got 20 of these boxes to place by tomorrow night, and I just need to get them in some homes.
#2 They had 2 TVs one in the living room one in the bedroom, only the one in the living room had a box that sent results in. Some folks can have as many as 5 TVs in a home, Kids watch cartoons in the living room, mom watches a cooking show in the kitchen, Dad is watching the weather channel in the bedroom, and there 20 year old son is watching Enterprise in his room, Grandad fell asleep in his room watching a old Roy Rogers Flick, and the only results recorded was the cartoon channel in the livingroom!
#3 By 2001 UPN was on Dish Network, who at the time was in apx. 7 million homes and NO black boxes for the Nielsen as they target cable, there were a lot of enterprise viewers that were never counted in the Nielsens. Direct TV was in apx. 18 million homes, at that time. The Nielsens were missing a total of 25 million Households then, just in the small dishes. With 3 to 5 people in each home this is a total of 75 million to over 100 million viewers that have been missed! Update as of 2004 they have had a few boxes monitoring little dishes. SEE #10 the biggest hole yet!!!
# 4. In 2001 there were close to a million 10' (big dish systems still subscribing in the US) (Down from 3 million households in 1998, these were not longer subscribed but still in use for receiving the free wild feeds) I was one of many folks who were getting the Voyager, then Enterprise off a wild feed on the big dish, was free and unscrambled, then in 2002 when they switch there feed to digital on the big dish, I am many other fans went out and bought a digital receiver to hook in parallel with our big dishes so we could continue to get Enterprise, still unscramble so was still free, Nielsens don’t target big dishes either so here was another audiance that was missed (3 to 15 million viewers) (3 to 5 people per household). I still watch the free feeds on my big dish, and so are many others!
#5. The VCR (this one has been around since 1977) record one show while watching another, which show does the nielsen box register as being viewed, or does this confuse it and nothing is registered?
#6.Last 5 years have had DVR same whole as the VCR.
#7.More and more folks are watching tv from the computer.
#8 There are still a lot of folks in Large cities that do not have cable or Satellite, and rely on over air broadcast NO Black Boxes here either!
#9 They do not measure Viewer ship from other countries at all! Many Products That get advertised on TV sell around the globe now, (The world is getting smaller!)
#10. There are 60 to 100 million homes in the US boxes are in less than 1% of US homes (1 % would be 1/2 milliom to 1 million homes so are in 1/4 % US Homes), I have found 2 different figures 12,000 and 25,000 homes being monitored by the Nielsens, less than 1% of US homes, to be even close to accurate they should be in at least 10% of homes that would would be 10 million homes should have boxes!
If you think you have some holes in the Nielsen Rating System, Feel free to email me and I will post them! thescifinut@gmail.com
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