How wrong can Nielsen be ?
By fred | July 31, 2008
It’s a recurring question that I’ve been asking myself on many occasions. While it seems widely accepted by every major party on the business that, however flawed Nielsen ratings maybe, they have been an established ratings measurement institution for many years and everyone just agrees to accept whatever numbers they come up with because, at the end of the day, they are believed to represent an overall “accurate” representation of which TV shows are the most watched every day, one can’t help but wonder.
I know many fans of Jericho have repeatedly said that Nielsen wasn’t right, and many more of them were watching the show than was reported. Fans from (many) other shows have also complained, and while it’s easy to say they’re only doing so because they love their shows, sometimes you have to wonder if, really, after all those years and so many spin-offs, CSI remains one of the most-watched series to this day, or if Nielsen families are just not really representative (anymore) of the current households in the United States ?
Because Nielsen is all about sampling, watching how a few thousands selected households - who agreed and are known to be “watched” - and from those data claim to know what happened for the other television households all over the United States, the over 110 million of them. And I’m not here to say sampling can’t work or anything like that, but it’s easy enough to have doubts.
I’m talking about this after reading James Hibberd’s comments on the ratings for The Secret Life Of The American Teenager :
Tuesday’s episode of ABC Family’s The Secret Life Of The American Teenager broke through into new territory in all its target demos, including a 16% increase this week in total viewers (3.6 million) and a 7% gain in adults 18-49 (1.6 million).
That means the fifth episode of Secret Life outperformed any given episode of the CW’s Gossip Girl in total viewers and bested the Gossip season average by 11% — despite being on a cable network in the summer instead of a broadcast network during the regular season. (Is this a fair comparison? Not for ABC Family, but they certainly don’t mind.)
Now I won’t say ABC Family’s latest show isn’t doing well, I’m sure it is. But I think it’s fair to wonder : is it really doing that well, and so much better than Gossip Girl ? Or are Nielsen families simply watching more ABC Family than they are The CW ??
Flaws in the Nielsen system are known and have been known, and accepted, for years because, simply, nothing better has come along to take over. And while it would be foolish to say that Internet buzz or the number of blogs about a show online is any indication as to its overall popularity, seeing all the coverage done over “Internet sensation” Gossip Girl, or the fact that it got the New York Magazine cover among other, I think it’s fair to ask.
Back in the 1980’s and during sweeps, a Los Angeles TV station proved how Nielsen ratings could be “cheated” when they decided to boost their ratings by airing a series about Nielsen families. As expected, all actual Nielsen families were of course quite interested in the stories of “their” lives and did tune in. The station’s numbers went through the roof, yet something tells me this wasn’t really an accurate representation of all “regular” households…
Adding to that the new ways to consume media, and - especially for younger demo - it’s no secret than more and more people do not watch their favorite shows by tuning in when the network decides they should anymore, but uses other means - from iTunes to torrents - and, again, I ask : How wrong can Nielsen be ?
Posted in News
Shows: Gossip Girl, Jericho
It’s about time the Nielsen rating’s ridiculously outdated system is written about. Thank you.
To have a few thousand people telling us what over 300 million people are watching is absurd. Good shows are canceled because of “ratings”, yet those ratings can easily be skewed.
TV viewing Americans need to demand a new system and if we can put men on the moon, I think we can come up with a better system.
Hi Fred,
Good article. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Nielsen nees to change how it measures an audience!
Gwen
http://www.jericho-kansas.com
My pleasure!
I really wish there’d be some other numbers available out there, so we could compare and try to see what’s really going on.
After all, having one unique source to “dictate” which shows are winners and which are losers is a bit of an unhealthy situation… especially seeing how all networks put more “faith” in those numbers than in any (strong) fan initiative, see CBS’ recent messes — I really don’t think I need to elaborate more on that one, do I? ;)