I once was selected to be a Nielson Family, one of the proud few people selected to represent a small portion of the nation in my choices of television viewing. The way it works now is, they send you this pad of paper for every member of your household, and you have to manually write down every minute of what you are watching. Now anybody that knows me and my family knows this thing isn't going to work, we're simply too lazy! I think that a system should be built into your television that records what you're watching, and every so often send this record to the Nielson people so they can develop TV ratings, it would be more accurate, because it would record what everybody is really watching, not just what some person is writing down (most likely the shortest title or easiest thing to write down) Now as an added bonus (yes, it can get better!), I think there should be a rating device on the remote control that allows you to rate the quality of the TV shows you're watching with a simple 3 button format, Really Sucks, Sucks, or Only Sucks a little. This would prevent shows like Xena, or Pro Wrestling from remaining on TV (once people realize the only reason to watch is to document the decline of humanity).
-- Hal-B, Dec 06 2000

The meter http://www.nielsenm...wing%20information?
They already do it with a box connected to the TV (in some households). [PotatoStew, Dec 06 2000, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Well, the TiVo and ReplayTV boxes already know what you are watching, and phone home regularly for schedule updates. They claim they don't tell the Mothership what you are watching, but rmutt suspects it's only a matter of time before they do. Already every time you fire up a Real player on your PC, it phones home (any packet sniffer nijas out there figure out what it is saying?). Real soon now every Micro$oft application will also phone home, and who is going to trust THEM to not collect information on you.

Am I paranoid to be bothered about this?
-- rmutt, Mar 13 2001


Use a firewall like Zonealarm and you can selectively tell it what to allow to phone home or not. I don't let RP or anything else do it...
-- StarChaser, Mar 13 2001


I believe there has been research into having a small camera & computer mounted on top of the neilsen-set, with the computer running software to recognize faces and keep track of how many people were watching at what times. I don't have a link, though.
-- wiml, Mar 13 2001


yes, rmutt, you are paranoid, but paranoia keeps people safe(r). Hey, Zonealarm is even free! More power to us all to stay paranoid.
-- absterge, Mar 13 2001


When I first saw this title I thought it was some sort of program that uses the excess capacity of your PC to play "Without You". Then I realized I couldn't spell.
-- Gordon Comstock, Mar 13 2001


I thought this was going to be Connie Nielsen brought to your home. Darn!
-- dgeiser13, Mar 13 2001



random, halfbakery