Nielsen ratings?

[RedRooster]

How are we(well, America) still using such a weird way of tracking viewership ratings? Surely the cable/satellite companies would have a way to track usage over their own networks instead of only having a small slice of the country being tracked, no?

I guess with so many providers it'd be impossible to track it any other way in a timely manner, but the numbers always just seem really hokey and you have to trust it because it's what the nielsen system is reporting.