I'm a Nielsen Family® !

[Berliner]

I wonder if they account for ... bittorrent

Certainly. Best ratings they'll ever see.

 

[NoTine42]

The dinner of champions. Save money where it doesn't matter, spend it where it does.

I LOL'ed
:biggrin:

Do you serve Milk Bones or Meow Mix with a red wine? And don't tell me you are a prentious **** that gets Cesar's canned dog food.

 

[lxskllr]

Do you serve Milk Bones or Meow Mix with a red wine?

You want a brittle dry white to compliment MilkBones. MeowMix goes better with something like a Pinot noir.

And don't tell me you are a prentious **** that gets Cesar's canned dog food.

Not much point in that. You aren't saving money at that point, so you might as well get a bacon cheeseburger.

 

[IronWing]

i was a nielson viewer a couple of years back. if you dont have major electricity rates or are paranoid about privacy, take the option.

money-wise:
5 for the postcard reply
20 for interview
2 year term, @ ~$20/month with some signing bonus(dont remember how much maybe 120 - 200$?).
if they break any of your tvs they will pay to replace.
they install crappy cheap pc's to collect the data and send it back to the servers. the equipment in the tv monitors the audio and uses it to id the show. if they are on the same tech, you log into a small box on each tv when you watch.(they had like 3 pc boxes for 2 tvs and the 24/7 spike in electricty use negated some of the money reward)
semi annual interviews to update household stats.

at the tail end of it they offered a pc app to monitor your web watching.
...

That's not bad. At any point in the sign-up process did Nielsen ask you if you actually owned a TV set?

 

[gorobei]

The dinner of champions. Save money where it doesn't matter, spend it where it does.

I LOL'ed
:biggrin:

Do you serve Milk Bones or Meow Mix with a red wine? And don't tell me you are a prentious **** that gets Cesar's canned dog food.

You want a brittle dry white to compliment MilkBones. MeowMix goes better with something like a Pinot noir.

Not much point in that. You aren't saving money at that point, so you might as well get a bacon cheeseburger.

bah. you sound like a dabbler. a true observer of the 'vittles and vino diet would go cheap chinese bulk and a vintage syrah. the tainted melamine and arsenic pair well with the chocolatey undertones.

 

[gorobei]

That's not bad. At any point in the sign-up process did Nielsen ask you if you actually owned a TV set?

yes they ask, and it is a requirement. you can own a plain ota rabbit ears setup however. there are occasionally quotas for types of households and channels(cable/sat/ota) so if you dont have one they are looking for you may be rejected.

 

[IronWing]

yes they ask, and it is a requirement.

Well that sucks. Maybe I can pick-up another proto-deathray off Freecycle and let them hook up to that before I rip it apart. :hmm:

 

[destrekor]

Cable ratings make sense after reading this thread. The smart people take the $ and run so the only the what the idiots watch is accounted for.

Cable ratings aren't entirely accounted for only by Nielsen surveys. Nielsen also has smart boxes that actively poll and don't need interaction, iirc, and there are other viewer data collectors. I believe DirecTV doesn't require any input from viewers to get their viewing habits, and that data is collected and sold in bulk to marketers. There are a few approaches they use to estimate number of viewers.