Nielsen Gun

The Neilsen television rating system isn't really much of a "rating" system at all. It simply monitors how many people are watching a particular program, and in some cases also collects demographic information about who's watching which show. Just because you're watching something, though, doesn't mean it's good. And what about commercials?

Enter the Neilsen Gun. Elvis used to shoot his television when he didn't like what he saw. At one time or another, you've wanted to emulate The King, and now you can!

Is your least-favorite show coming on? Point the infrared Neilsen Gun at the screen and fire off a few shots during the opening credits before you change the channel. Is one of your favorite shows being ruined by an annoying character or inconsistent script quality? When you see something you don't like during the course of the show, blast away. Did you just sit through a poor episode of a generally good series? Open fire during the closing credits. The signals will be received by a small box on top of your TV, or by Neilsen hardware built in to the television.

It works for commercials, too. Imagine the joy of virtually blowing Carrot Top away the next time one of those 1-800 long-distance ads appears, knowing that your voice of disapproval is being received loud and clear, and might actually contribute to the elimination of a terrible ad campaign. (Note to people living outside the United States: Carrot Top is a loud, obnoxious, frighteningly unattractive "comedian" who's been doing excruciatingly bad telephone ads for what seems like forever).

What happens if you see something you DO like? Just point the gun at the ceiling and fire a few shots in the air, cowboy style! Yee-haw! The Neilsen Gun has a second infrared emitter on the bottom of the handgrip. Signals received from the handgrip emitter count as positive votes!

Each gun has it's own identifying code to prevent abuse and gauge individual responses. Shooting the screen 500 times during "The Price Is Right" will register as one viewer having very strong feelings about the show, not 500 general votes for or against it.

For those of you who aren't gun-crazy Americans, or don't want to teach your children that a handgun is the best way to express an opinion, these same voting features can be integrated into a traditional remote control.

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This system would almost certainly be open to abuse during the first weeks or months after widespread release, so I would suggest the Neilsen people don't take the initial ratings too seriously until the novelty wears off, and all the technical/security bugs have been worked out.

My idea of zapping the crap during a show may also be of limited value - there's no way to tell exactly what it is that people didn't like at that particular moment, only that a lot of people blasted the screen eight minutes into the show. Even if this feature was eliminated, however, the Neilsen Gun would still gather useful and currently unavailable information - people's opinions on the quality of a particular episode, and how they feel about specific commercials.