It’s been much longer and more drawn out than I anticipated posting all the things I wrote about being a Neilsen Family. I think this final post is a fair comparison to the entire experience. If you’ve been reading along you might think, “Huh, I kind of forgot all that stuff…” and by the end that’s kind of where I was with plugging the number into the remote every time I watched TV. It sort of became this afterthought rather than some kind of actual, accurate tracking thing in my mind. We’re close to a year since all the equipment went away and I can say that while intellectually I might miss the influence, I most certainly don’t miss tracking stuff and having extra buttons laying about.

Another interesting note? The amount of television watched has fallen back off a cliff. People will say, “have you watched…” and generally speaking the answer is no. There just isn’t enough there for me. Sure, there are quality shows out there and things I want to watch, I just don’t feel the need to rush out there to see any of them. I never did get to that ‘one more’ entry I thought I would get (unless you count this one). Here’s the final entry in the ‘secret’ series:

June 27, 2017

Habits are hard to break. Going cold turkey is certainly a way to break a habit. I was told last night by my wife that the folks from Neilsen called. They will be stopping by the house today and unhooking all the monitoring stuff from our home.

That’s it, we’re done. Cold turkey indeed.

It’s actually difficult to believe that it has been 2 years already. In that same breath I also find myself thinking it’s a good thing to stop now. We’ve gotten into a routine with the monitoring equipment and there are a lot of days when I actively question the accuracy of what we’re showing. How many times have we not had the right folks listed compared to who’s actually sitting in the room watching (or listening) to what we’re playing? Hard to say.

How many times have I come home to find that the music I had been playing when I left (and allowed to continue to play for those staying at the house) was done and everything had just been sitting there waiting for me to come back and “check in” for the purposes of ratings?

How accurate are those ratings when we switch to a streaming service and avoid the regular TV channels? We are well into the worst part of the year for television in my opinion – it’s terrible. More terrible than I normally find it. We have the system on, but most often are playing music via a streaming service. Does that count?

What I would love to know is what our profile has looked like over these 2 years. I have no doubt that we’ll never be able to see or know any of that, but I think it would be fascinating. What did we say we were doing / watching vs. what we were actually watching in terms of hours on the system? Information that is up for sale…

And that’s the reason for the big secret all this time. What we’ve sold to Nielsen is something they’ve packaged and sold to somebody else. We’ve had our time, we’ve tried to show what our preferences would be and in the end we’re just part of the larger numbers that broadcasters are aiming for.

I hope the few shows I really like survive. I don’t believe for a minute that the shows we don’t care for will suffer for us not watching them. I would hope that, but we are still clearly not the target demographic for a lot of stuff.

I suspect there will be one more blog entry after this. The post departure impressions and how things have changed after all the monitoring equipment left the house. How the kiddo will deal with the change (or if she’ll notice). Hopefully all this will prove to be interesting reading (if only there were a way to track that…).

Well, it counted a little anyway.

This is another in the few remaining posts of my thoughts from when I was part of the Neilsen rating system. I’ve mentioned before about the company’s request to keep this a secret. This was one of those times when I didn’t want to, but it would have felt entirely self serving. It in fact feels entirely too self serving to “tag” the person I mention in this post. I did what I could, when nobody was watching.

April 4, 2017

Miraculously, when the end of our trial period came up in late December / early January the company we get our TV from extended our ‘bonus’ time for signing up out another year. I did not call them to complain. I did not call them at all – they simply did it.

I can’t say they know, but doesn’t that seem suspicious? When has a cable company ever given you anything for free without you demanding they make up for being shitty?

Suspect I say. Suspect.

It’s been longer between my entries here than before. I think it’s because we’re coming up on the two year mark for this and it has just… faded. I still know it counts, I still log in when I start up the TV but there’s no enthusiasm. There’s nothing on the program schedule that I really want to see. There’s very little I’ve been really interested in supporting. I can say the one exception to that is when Myke Cole started promoting a show that he was going to be on. THAT was exciting. I tuned in live and logged in to have my ‘vote’ count for as much of the season as I possibly could. Anything I couldn’t get to live because of my schedule I went back and looked at on demand via the television provider service (rather than an on-line service). I have no idea if I made a difference or not. This was another one of those times when I desperately wanted to say something – but had to keep it to myself. I tend not to watch, like or enjoy reality television, but the CBS show “Hunted” fell into the exception category. It was very interesting. If you can still dig it up on demand someplace it’s worth some of your time to check it out.

I know there’s at least one person out there actually reading these posts and the stuff I’ve been pushing out here about my time as part of a ratings family has been uneven in its release. Honestly, it was uneven when I was writing it and more so when I was actually clicking the box. I think I’ve only got 2 left after this one. From football / election season, it’s interesting to look back.

November 11, 2016

I ran for cover since the last time I wrote something for this. It was election season. It was such an acidic, nasty and overpowering beast of a race that I just couldn’t watch. If I was watching something, it was an on demand show where I could hide from the commercials. I attempted to watch some football, but the commercials that bombarded me approximately every 3rd play were horrific. I turned away.

Along those lines there have been any number of news articles lately about how the ratings are way, way down for the NFL this year. The NFL regularly draws big numbers, but not so much this year. Guess what? Part of that is me. Most people say that, but this time it’s actually kind of true. I’ve tuned out. I couldn’t stand the political stuff grating on my last nerve after long days. The games themselves have become slow, angry affairs where grown men argue like children in the playground. Multi-millionaire players dance and flash finger symbols and whatever else after every play. EVERY PLAY. How about be a professional and just play the next play. Don’t dance. Don’t gesticulate or gyrate. Nobody gives a flaming bag of dog shit that you made your 53rd tackle of the season. Do you job and shut up. Nobody working double shifts wants to hear how a 6 year 48 million dollar contract wasn’t enough and you had to do right by your family. Shut UP.

The NFL also suffers from the old contracts it’s got with television stations. I say this because it was another reason I turned the games off. I was watching a team that I like and don’t get to see very often. They were winning. Rather than letting the game play out somebody decided to go to a game that was tied and likely to head to overtime. More competitive, more exciting. I was angry that I wouldn’t get to see my favorite team, but a more exciting game would be good. Fine. The teams were in the same conference and one of them was likely to end up in the playoffs against my favs so worth a look.

THEN THEY STOPPED PLAYING THAT BROADCAST JUST BEFORE THE POTENTIAL FINAL SCORE BECAUSE THEY HAD TO SHOW THE LOCAL TEAM THAT CAN’T WIN A DAMN THING AND COULDN’T BEAT A SOLID HIGH SCHOOL TEAM.

Needless to say, I was somewhat upset. I simply shut it off and walked away. My voice actually counted this time though. At least a little.

Along those lines, this is supposed to be a secret. Secret so that our family is not unduly influenced in any way about what we watch or how we interact with sponsors. Well, if everything about this is supposed to be a secret – why would Nielsen plaster their name all over the remote controls they left here? Like it’s a brand somebody would shop for. I ask this because it’s difficult enough trying to get the data put into the little box on the TV when we have guests without arousing suspicion about what we’re doing. I have some very clever friends. Nobody has to be clever when they are over for an evening, pick up the remote and say, “Huh, Nielsen. So you’re doing the TV ratings thing, right?”

So much for secret.

I’m supposed to let the company know when somebody knows, but I have become suspect of this whole ratings thing. It has become something that is so routine now as to be defaulted to where it was when we turned the TV on, no matter who is here or what’s going on. My ID has become the one that gets left on when my wife walks away and doesn’t want to change the music channel we listen to. I’ll have taken the kiddo out to the dojo and will come back 2 hours later – but my ID is still the only one logged in. I hit the button and it’s all logged, even though I wasn’t actually here. Suspect at best. Flat out skeptical most of the time.

We’re coming up on the end of our promotional (free) time for the TV channels that we have. It’s actually the only reason we have TV beyond what we can stream from the internet or Netflix. It will be interesting to see what happens once that changes.

That’s it. They’re done. No more Olympics. We’re done for another couple of years. Did you watch? Did you catch highlights? Did you just look for the medal count on a web site someplace?

I will admit that I watched an exceptionally small amount of Olympic coverage. There were a number of things going on in my life and television just wasn’t on the list of things to do – no matter what the athletes or teams were doing. I’ve been scanning headlines and one that jumped out at me was about NBC. The network is claiming that they’ve made money, but that viewership is down yet again.

At this point I’ve got to believe they’re down to like just the ski teams moms and that guy named Murray that really wants to talk to you about curling brooms the way they report it. I’m not buying it. They were quiet upset about viewership when I was clicking the ratings box back in 2016. Here’s another of my writings from my Nielsen time:

August 22, 2016

I keep thinking it’s been longer since I’ve written here last. It’s been a little less than a month. I couldn’t keep away from this one though. I hope the ‘permanent link’ works.

Did Millennials Ruin The Olympics?

The title about millennials wrecking the ratings? How about the broadcast being something I can’t be bothered with? It’s worse than the NFL when it comes to commercials and over-killing the ‘feel good’ story of whatever athlete was coming up next.

Look, I get it. The Olympics are supposed to be the pinnacle of athletic achievement. Once you wade through all the cheaters and poorly behaved morons there are some really wonderful stories out there. There were some amazing things accomplished this year. I read the news articles, watched the highlights and only tuned in a handful of times. I don’t care about Spain’s beach volleyball team. I’m sorry, I don’t. I’m not going to watch them play against Abiza or whatever country has a qualified team.

So – I took my ratings and watched something else. I’m at the top end of that rating category, but still in it. I just wasn’t moved to watch 900 hours of program. When I did take some time and sit in front of the mind sucking machine – I generally watched something that didn’t challenge me (and then I ended up falling asleep most times because 5 am gets here early). There was no way I was staying up until midnight all week to see the results of a 30 second competition that I could catch any important highlights of the next day.

I know there are likely advertisers and tv people out there that want to know *why* I wasn’t interested. I’m not sure I can put a finger on it exactly. I just wasn’t interested. I didn’t tune in. Ratings were down 20% compared to the last Olympics – and I suspect the next games will have even worse ratings… but I won’t be part of the ratings “officially” then as I’ll be past the end of the time I can be a Nielsen Family.

I am actually really glad I don’t have any monitoring equipment hooked up to the computers any more. I suspect I’m still “lost” as far as tracking and being tracked goes, but that little thing seems to help.

July 31, 2016
I’ve picked out a show that I like and I’ve made an effort to see it “live” rather than recorded. I really enjoy Killjoys. It’s fast paced and has interesting characters. They’re working on building up a long term story arc. I’m interested in where it goes.
I’m genuinely hopeful this will have an effect on programming. I’m not sure how much my little contribution will help, but I’m hopeful. I can say that having the rating box connected to my TV has made me more cognizant of tracking shows and when they’re on. There aren’t many things on TV I like, so I really want the ones I like to survive. I’ve also specifically stayed away from things I think are terrible. Even if I’m interested I won’t go and watch them if I don’t want them to get any kind of bump on the ratings. I know the monitoring is working. I know this because we switched my daughter over to her own computer. When we did this we didn’t think to notify the Nielsen people. See, there’s also a little tracking thing that’s plugged into our computer so they can tell if we watch something on a network then go run to an advertiser site we just saw. Well, my daughter spends a fair amount of time on the computer – and when she wasn’t clicking the little computer check box and signing in all the time like she was before, they noticed. They called and asked what was up. Then they set up an appointment and came over to install the same little tracker thing on my daughter’s new system.
I’m thinking about it now and I’m not sure if I’m amazed or horrified at this technology. You’re not clicking away like you used to. We’re coming to your house to check on you. That sounds like 1984 (the book – not the year).
This is one of those incremental shifts. You don’t really notice or worry until one day you’re so far down the road that when you look back you’re not entirely certain how you’ve arrived at your current location. When our promotional TV subscription ends, I wonder if we’ll actually shut it off.

It’s cold enough outside right now that staying in and doing NOTHING other than staying warm and watching TV sounds like a great idea. It’s been a while since my last installment of my “big secret” posts.

May 13, 2016

Friday the 13th! Lucky for me – I had some free time. I’ve got friends coming over again tonight and you know what? I’m totally not adding them in on the rating box thing. It’s a pain and then they ask questions about it. I have clever friends – I suspect they’ve got an idea of what’s going on but are polite enough to not ask.

I’m also trying to remember the terminology when you’re aware of the results being studied during scientific experiments… because that’s totally the case here. We’re all aware of the fact that people are looking at what we watch and don’t watch. It skews the data. Can’t be helped. We’re aware of the study, therefore the study is changed.

It’s also interesting that as we get further from the “new” feeling of the ratings thing that we seem to be reverting to our old habits and watching less and less television. We put music up (streaming via our smart TV) and then we just let it go. Sometimes even when I go out and leave it running my wife won’t actually be listening, but will just absentmindedly hit the ‘refresh’ button whenever she walks past. I’m not in the house and still contributing to the ratings. I wonder how much they account for that.

I also can’t wait to be able to publish this stuff. Keeping a secret this long is difficult.

The football season this year is not exactly making for “must see TV”. I’m struggling to put a finger on exactly why this season totally stinks, but there you have it. It’s dull. I HATE the celebrations. They could be a topic unto themselves, but this is definitely one of those cases where the ‘less is more’ rule applies. I know the “No Fun League” brought them back because people thought outlawing the touchdown celebration was draconian but we were better off without them. It’s difficult enough to get through and average play and not have some idiot showboating that he did his job – frequently to the detriment of actually finishing the play.

Along those lines, here’s the next installment of what I wrote about my time as a Neilsen family. It flashes back to other writing I did about television. It’s almost like that part in Deadpool where there’s a fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break (that’s like 16 walls!), but not actually like that at all.

February 7, 2016

So, the ‘big game’ is on and I’m contributing to the ratings (even if I’m only half watching it). While it’s on I’ve been searching an archive for something I wrote in the past and came across something very interesting. Apparently we’d been given the opportunity to fill out a paper survey for Nielsen way back in 2009. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time:

July 6th, 2009
How average are you?
02:23 pm
We are apparently average (or lucky?) enough to join the ratings system. Yup, that’s right – it’s the Nielsen Ratings system for July Sweeps. Yipee(ish).

I’ve discovered a few things in this process.

First, while the folks at Nielsen DO apparently have electronic devices for monitoring this kind of thing – they still use a little paper booklet for millions of families. Yeah, you read it right – little paper books. Here’s there statement:

“Diaries continue to be a valuable instrument in our measurement toolbox, and are used to collect viewing information from sample homes in almost every television market in the United States. Each year we process approximately 2 million paper diaries from households across the country for the months of November, February, May and July — also known as the “sweeps” rating periods. ”

Second – the depths of my laziness know no bounds. I can honestly say that the simple fact that I’d have to write it down has kept me away from channel clicking when I might have otherwise. Totally not working the way it’s supposed to for ratings, but there you have it. I’m addicted to the TV, but having to do even the tiniest bit of work to get there and I’m completely put off. How’s that for lazy?

My last observation is actually about the amount of TV that actually gets watched at our house. Not much is the short answer (and it’s almost all me). Since we started this last Thursday we’ve totalled approximately 3 hours of TV time, most of that taken up by a movie that lists it’s running time at well over 2 hrs. Don’t get me wrong, the kiddo has watched a movie on DVD and we listen to our 24 hour digital music channel via the cable, but we haven’t really watched anything “on tv”. I looked at the listings over the next couple of days, but really haven’t seen anything world shaking. I’ll probably try to catch the premier of Warehouse 13 (despite the fact that it’s on the syphilis channel) but we might not be home until around the time it comes on. We have lives outside the box – so if we get there, we get there, if we don’t, we don’t.

Have you ever been lucky enough to be picked?
How much TV do you watch on average?

Interesting to see what has changed and what hasn’t in those intervening years.