Yesterday, in discussing ABC’s decision to release a spoiler-heavy 10-minute preview of the upcoming third season of “Cougar Town,” television critic Ryan McGee asked showrunner, Bill Lawrence, directly what the idea behind the strategy was. Here’s his response:
It’s not a “new standard” as far as clips go. We have a different burden – getting people back after nine months, convincing folks to try a show with a polarizing title. But: why not put every episode out? You’re not trying to get all those people to watch it on TV, you’re trying to get word of mouth, and buzz to spread to the 25,000 NIELSEN households (that’s it – has anyone met one?) that determine the fate of your show. That is our flawed system: 25,000 households representing entire TV viewing country. You just have to hope that if a Nielsen family watches pilot/clips early, they are still compelled to watch again because they liked it and want to keep show alive. Ruining it for the masses or encouraging them to watch on their computer doesn’t matter until the system changes.
I knew the Nielsen sample was small, but that number is striking: 25,000 households, out of approximately 115 million households in America. I’m not very good at math, but by my calculator’s calculations, that means that .0217 percentage of American households determine not only the amount a network can charge its advertisers, but what shows in effect are canceled or renewed. .0217. That’s astounding. That means that, essentially, a very popular show (say, a show like “Mike & Molly” that receives 10 million household viewers) has to only be seen by the right 2,100 households out of 115 million to be considered a successful show.
It also means that, around 870 Nielsen families watched “Community” each week, which is why it’s on hiatus. But the difference between a low-rated show (the 4 million households that watch “Community”) and a show that would be considered extremely safe on NBC (6 million real households, or 1,300 Nielsen households) is around 430 households.
So, basically what it boils down to is this: The decision of 430 households (out of 115 MILLION households) to not watch “Community” on Thursday nights means that the rest of us are not given the privilege of watching Alison Brie run in low-cut blouses. That’s true even if, of those 430 households, one or two of the members of that household are watching “Community” on Hulu two days after it airs, while Grampa is asleep with “CSI” on the old television set.
And that, folks, is how completely f***ing moronic Nielsen ratings are. The fate of one show can be determined by the television watching habits 430 grandfathers who fell asleep watching a crappy procedural.
(Source: Boobtubedude)
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My friend’s parents became a Nielson family for a year a few years ago and he absolutely hated it. You have to log into your T.V. anytime you use it, for any T.V. in the house. This is so that the Nielson people know whether my 23 year old friend is watching King of the Hill or his 52 year old mother is. It’s a really strange system once I saw how it worked and really cumbersome for the families who do it, although they are paid a nominal amount. He did say that he would often keep shows on that he liked even if he wanted to watch something else because he wanted them to do well, but you have to tell your T.V. you are still watching the program every so often.
We’re fixin’ to be Nielsen family. They’re sending me five booklets (we have TWO TVs) so I promised Danger that I’d fill one up with Guy Fieri shows and 90s movies about animals playing sports.
My parents got the Nielson books once. I hope it wasn’t weird that one of their televisions played nothing but Community and Parks and Rec twice a day (There is a DVR option) and 6 people in their 20′s watched it.
They asked me, on the front end, how many TVs we had. I said “four,” but then told them that we only watch TV on two. (The other two are in each of my kids’ room, and they’re only used for Playstationing/XBoxing/DVD-watching.) She said she was sending five books anyway.
“a” Nielsen family. Dear Uproxx, Edit Button por favor?
This failure to adapt to changing technology is why the current established media companies are losing money. Will they change? Nope.
I got the request once, but it was during the summer when I was still a college student. I couldn’t do it, because I was spending time at home, at college, and out of town for an internship.
Basically, the system favors old farts and this is why we can’t have nice things.
How do I become a Nielsen family? Is it like Highlander, where I have to murder one to take their power?
Yes.
And if you do that, and I murder you…I…gain…your-
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! *Queen Plays*
Must. Punch. Something.
Times like these are why I need to keep a Big Bang Theory cast photo around.
The “Things That Are Retarted” tag seems oddly underused.
My family was a Neilsen family for about a year when I was a kid. I don’t know how it started or why it stopped, but I remember just writing in the names of shows I would’ve watched even when I didn’t.
The Neilsens are television’s form of the Coaches Poll — a bunch of unqualified, biased individuals are allowed to determine the course of national events despite the availability of infinitely better systems.
You’re not very good at math. It’s .0217 percent of America. When you’re talking about a percentage of a number you have to multiply it by 100.
No. I’m lousy at math, but I’m fairly certain that 25,000 households out of 115,000,000 does not equal .02 (or 2%) of the household population.
Danny’s right. That .000217 is out of 1, not out of 100. That’s still a fifth of a percent, though.
If it helps, 1,150,000 is 1% of 115,000,000. Dividing 1,150,000 by 5 gets 230,000, which is .2%. Dividing that by 10 gets 23,000, or .02% So yeah, 25,000 is .0217%.
Oh, I see. Kind of. (Again, I’m sh*t at math).
So, that means 2 tenths of one percent, yes?
Yup
It means two hundreths of a percent.
An antiquated system for new television landscape. No wonder networks are failing.
There are more quality TV shows on than ever. Just last night I had to choose between watching the second hour of The River (which was much better than it had any right to be) and Justified. I chose The River because it was already on and I was kinda into it, but I watched Justified on my DVR immediately after because it’s the tits. So Justified doesn’t get my “ratings credit?” Absurd.
The Neilsens need to cast a larger net over a more diverse audience, incorporate DVR and On-Demand viewings into the formula, and find an easier way to record viewing habits (which can’t be difficult in an age where 90 percent of signals run through a cable box that’s essentially a computer).
Actually, Justified would get your “ratings credit.” You watched it the same day, they count that. Just as long as you don’t wait more than a few days to watch it.
I believe the magic number is 3. You have to watch it within 3 days to make sure the show gets full credit.
File this under the category of: “things I wish I had never learned”.
Yup. Retarded. Especially with DVRs and digital cable, the cable companies have the technology in place to know what everyone is watching. It won’t be broken down by age, for which Neilson type system has a slight benefit, but still, the two can work in conjunction, right?
I didn’t get past the picture. Hump day and all.
My family was a Nielsen family during the mid to late 90′s and I can vouch for how stupid, annoying and broken the whole concept of Neilsen ratings are. Basically one person = 1 Million people, not sure how the Neilsen math works but that’s how it goes. The actually box itself is a nuisance, constantly flashing every 15 minutes to see if you are watching, the only good thing about the thing is that Neilsen would pay 10% of any new TV or VCr or DVD player that you bought. Also I’m pretty sure the Neilsen technician was a seriel killer, he was really creepy.
Sorry for the shit grammar and spelling, I’m at work right now and I can’t really get into the nitty gritty of anything
Actually, one Nielsen family is “representative” of ~19,000 viewers.
I was told there would be no math.
I don’t understand why they just don’t do it via DVR and cable boxes. I know TiVo keeps track of what shows are watched and recorded and what moments are frequently rewound live. Certainly it would be no big deal to use this information. The only thing you might not get is the age demographic. But if 1 million people are watching something and 800 another, why care? Your still reaching a larger audience.
They are getting there, but it takes time because of the demographic issues. The Nielsen meter makes you check in personally when you use the TV by pushing a button. The DVR can transmit your activity back to the provider, but doesn’t know who you are. Advertisers want people, not households.
They’re getting around that a little bit by doing blind address matching. They’re literally matching the set top box data from your house, merging it with your credit record, loyalty card record, prescription record, by your address, and making assumptions about your house and then taking out any personally identifying information and selling it back to data aggregators who are then trying to sell it to advertisers.
But for now, it’s not “currency.” It works, but advertisers and networks aren’t using it to negotiate rates for advertising costs yet. There are some small local market TV stations however that are moving in this direction.
I interviewed with Nielsen a few years back to run installation. Basically, they were offering to give me a car, which I thought was cool. Then the guy told me I’d be given a gun, too, because the people he had to deal with were psychotic.
A car and a free gun!?! Tell me you took the job, Burnsy. Rarely does one get such a good deal outside of the law enforcement industry.
I see it now. Sixth months later you would’ve been fished out of the Baltic sea by Eastern European fisherman with no memory of what you had done, or who you were, the Nielsen badge found in your wallet, your incredible martial arts skills, and inexplicable ability to speak Mandarin, are the only clues of you will have to explore your checkered past.
Now, someone get me a producer and 70 million dollars.
You are randomly selected to be a Nielsen family. A man or woman with Nielsen will show up at your door one day and want to talk to you about it. One thing about being in the program is that you cannot tell anyone that you are in it during and for one year after leaving it. If someone (friend or family) comes to your house and notices the box or remote you can tell them. But other than that, you aren’t supposed to talk about it.
Yes I remember that. The whole thing was very fight club, in hindsight the whole thing seemed very sketchey but we did it. Now as I remember it we were told that each family member was a “representative” of 1 million people, even me at the age of 12 or 13 knew that was fishy. Even back in 94 the system was antiquated.
25000, jeezy chreezy, I thought it was closer to a million.
Holy shit, does that make the wrestling industry’s obsession with ratings seem crazier than Margo Kidder.
Marge, may I play devil’s advocate for a moment?
While Nielsen is shitty in its end results in that we lose shows we love, it is still one hell of a strong representative sample. It’s far more wide reaching than even something like the General Social Survey which is one of the most respected bits of social data gathering in the game.
I’m going on vacation tomorrow to New York and I plan on dropping by Lower Manhandle to visit NMR’s headquarters and “Occupy” the sidewalk in front of their entrance. (and by “Occupy” I mean “Bend Down and Take a Giant Dump in Front of Everyone While Yelling ‘This is for Annie’s Boobs!’”)
I am the 99.999783 percent.
I’ve never believed in statistics, either….
….I’m sure 70% of them are wrong…..and the other half are liars….
There’s actually a lot of science that goes into how this is put together. And actually, it’s not 25k out of the entire U.S. It’s 25k in the top 30 markets or so. That’s what make up their national ratings. Local ratings are still collected in some markets by paper diaries where people write in what they watch every 15 minutes for a few weeks and mail them back in.
The national data is collected via a box that automatically collects what you’re watching. And it does actually give you credit for what you watch on your DVR, so long as you do it within 3 days of watching. Most entertainment programming (sports is a little different), is bought by advertisers on what’s called a C3 rating. Commecials have a different audio code than a program itself, and the machine registers that. When you skip through a commerical on your DVR, that audio code doesn’t register, and the meter gives no credit. An advertiser isn’t actually buying the audience of a program, it’s buying the audience of the commericals within that program. If you’re a Nielsen household, the best thing you can do is not skip the commericals when you’re watching a program on tape – and make sure you do it within 3 days of the original airing.
It’ all rolls up. Advertisers typically buy what’s called a GRP – Gross Ratings Point. That’s essentially, the reach of a program factoring in Frequency. Reach x Frequency = GRP. For example, if an advertiser goes to ABC and says I want to buy 3 GRPs in Cougartown and the ABC says, we predict that will bring a rating of 1, that means that we, ABC, has to air your ad 3 times in Cougartown, since a ratings point equals one percent of the population.
If the ratings come in and they average only a .5 instead of a 1, then the advertiser’s buy only comes in at 1.5 GRPs, not 3, meaning the network has to give more commercial time to the advertiser to make good on the promise.
And that’s how shows get cancelled. If a network sees that a show does not get enough of an audience to pay off the inventory that it’s sold, it has to make up for airtime elsewhere, and cuts its losses.
Advertisers will typically buy specific demographics – A18-49 is typically bought – advertisers really could care less about reaching anyone over the age of 55 in reality, unless it’s drugs or politics.
Sounds made up…..like the germ “theory” of disease….
Well it’s comforting to know that local markets use an even more archaic method of determining what shows are popular than a cable box from 1987.
Dear awirish: You just blew my mind.
This is spot on. Glad I saw this before typing a long missive myself. Also, fwiw, cable companies are not allowed to sell your viewing data to third party companies (like Nielsen or any advertisers). That’s the main reason why cable boxes aren’t used to determine ratings data.
Actually, cable companies sell your viewing data all the time. The largest company collecting this data now is called Rentrak and they have data from around 17 million set top boxes – and these are only the boxes that are hooked up to a phone line or network cable and can transmit data back to the cable company.
This is also the same company that puts out box office esitmates, top video sales and rentals and a few more things.
It’s also why shows get cancelled so quickly. Networks know how many people have seen the promos and if they couldn’t get anyone to sample it, they feel they never will.
Look at the big brain on Brad.
I feel obligated to say that this is a good article. Thank you.
I have a vague recollection of receiving an invitation in the mail in like ’99 or ’00 to become a Neilson watcher. At the time, I thought “Cool. Now’s probably not good for me, but there will likely be other chances – sort of like an AOL disc – to try it out.”
I have never received another mailing. And I kick myself in neck on a regular basis when I regret not jumping on it.
I say we stage occupations of network studios fighting the stranglehold the 0.0217% holds over the rest of the country. We can make signs like “Save Community” and “Don’t Better off Ted on Me!”
IF the 25,000 were statistically representative of the general population, then that is actually a pretty good number for sampling. Most national polls (e.g. Gallup) only sample 1,000 or 2,000 people nation-wide to get what they (and statisticians) believe is a valid sense of public opinion with a relatively low margin of error. Of course, if the 25,000 is skewed very old (or any other way) or doesn’t count people watching shows online and on DVR, then that creates a different set of problems, but the 25,000 number is not it.
A couple I am friends with, around the age of 30, were in this program a year or so ago when I went over to their house. We can complain about losing Community, etc, but you really dont want to be in the Nielsen program. They had to constantly get up and press a button on the box that let the Nielsen Big Brothers know they were in fact watching the TV when it was on. It is a pain, though perhaps it would help burn a few extra calories.
They could always just get someone to cover for them.
The problem with Nielsen boxes isn’t in their math (I took a class on it and there’s a lot of fancy bell curvey nonsense but it’s sort of solid) the problem is that they stopped being relevant when the god damned DVR and Hulu got invented. The very minute you could watch a tv show on line with no way for Nielsen to track it, that business model became obsolete. I’m under 30 and no one I know has a cable subscription. I personally only watch broadcast television every now and then. I didn’t even watch the Super Bowl because I could DVR it. Nielsen doesn’t count those people and they never will because the minute networks figure out that ratings don’t matter…that’s the very SECOND Nielsen dies.
Actually the Nielsen book has a spot for DVR/recorded shows. You just add in when you watched it along w/ date/time recorded.
That picture of Alison Brie (and every other picture of Alison Brie) makes me feel funny.
Just got my Neilsen envelope yesterday. Send your bribes, *ahem* contributions, to b1lwashere, PO BOX ……
holy shit. take a class in statistics. 25,000 is more than a large enough sample size for all of the US and far larger numbers too. the caveat being that 25,000 needs to be a representative sample of the total population i general. but the problem is not, nor has it ever been, that neilsen does not use a large enough sample size.
the problem is you watch shows that don’t make enough money to cover their costs. so your favorite shows get canceled. i suggest finding entertainment in a different medium or just waiting until the television business model changes. constantly bitching about the neilsen ratings isnt doing anything except making you look ignorant.
Doesn’t change the fact that the Nielson system is outdated and flawed, especially given the technological advances we now enjoy since it’s inception in the 50s. The 50s being when Mr. Nielson decided to import his tactics from radio to that newfangled format of moving picture boxes. If 3 million people watch Community solely via Hulu, Nielson ratings don’t count that. They don’t even count watching a show on the network’s OWN WEBSITE.
Do yourself a favor and read an article: [splitsider.com]
Also, try not to hurt yourself from all the back-patting you’ve surely given yourself for taking a statistics class.
Nielsen actually does have a way to measure online programming as part of the total audience delivery. Any broadcaster who makes their programming available online can take advantage of it. The barrier is this: it has to have exactly the same commericals in exactly the same order as the broadcast. The issue is that most broadcasters don’t do that -they feel like they can better monetize the content by doing it differently online, mobile, tablets, etc.
Nielsen -or anyone else that wants to get into the act – can measure any content on any platform so long as the full broadcast, commercials included, is presented the same way for everyone, but everyone does online video a little differently, hence the largely overlooked online audience.
And advertisers have found that it’s more efficient (cheaper) to buy eyeballs in the form of “impressions” or “completed views” or some other specific and comprehensive metric rather than sampled and aggregated audiences like they do on TV.
Since advertising is sold differently on different platforms – broadcast, mobile, tablets, online, etc…it’s exceptionally difficult to roll up those audiences to get one number and demonstrate the overall scale of an audience.
thanks for the article. i dont see what that changes tho. the neilsen’s accurately measure how many people are watching live broadcasts. the networks use those numbers to sell ads. thats (for now) still how networks make back most of the money they spend on acquiring content.
its not like the networks are unaware of the limitations of the neilsen’s. like its some secret code a bunch of fans have cracked and if only they bitch loud enough on the internet, then executives will realize the truth and start investing their dollars in entertainment they so foolishly thought was previously unprofitable.
and sorry, but if you’re going to attack the neilsen’s for having an inadequate sample size to be statistically significant, it would help if you had a god damn clue about what youre talking about.
Ah, the age-old argument. I’ve been hearing this one since the 70′s, and it’s even more important now. Because with DVRs, television being broadcast over network cabling, etc., we have the perfect environment for gathering the appropriate information.
They should be able to have people opt-in to a widespread rating system that uses all these cable/satellite enabled DVRs. Those who decide that this means the government is tracking them can simply opt-out.
It would give us a sense of what’s being seen live, what’s being recorded, and what is being deleted without actually being watched.
Ooo, can we start looking at *everything* TV-related through the ‘Community’ lens? Wait, we already do? Ok, nevermind.
go to another website.
The biggest problem is that as someone pointed out below, it isn’t the networks that care about the Nielsen ratings, it is the advertisers. And the advertisers don’t care about your show if you watched it on Hulu or on DVR and skipped all the commercials. That does them no good at all. If everybody in America watched the same show, every week, but only did it on DVR and skipped all the commercials, the network would still cancel it because it wouldn’t make them any money.
GIMME SOMMA THAT INTERNET MUNNNAAYY
The thing I don’t understand is whenever they get Alison Brie in a photo shoot (during which I think the idea is to make her look more alluring/appealing than naturally possible using all kinds of makeup/lighting trickery) they never get anywhere near how goddamn cute she is as Annie Eddison. They just throw her in some American Apparel, and apply some muted ‘nude’ makeup. Throwing water on the fire here!
What is going on in this pic? She looks like a 90s Euro-crackwhore slouching in the corner of a one-room apartment that is possibly doubling up as a shower area. Photographers have the best sex-fantasies.
Oh, and er, on topic, having a Neilsen product… for recreational purposes…uh… inside city limits… that ain’t legal either dude.
That picture is titled “alison-brie-facebook-photos-4″ I DEMAND TO SEE THE PREVIOUS THREE