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You can blame me ..... this week.
jawick posted in his blog on Emmy voting "Then there are the mysteries that surround the Nielsen ratings system—a joke of cosmic proportions".
Well, I can answer a few of the mysteries because I just posted back a Nielsen TV diary covering what I watched this week.
It actually started a year ago, when I got a phone call from Nielsen, asking if I was prepared to take part in a TV survey in my area. Naturally I said yes but when they gave me the date it would cover, I was disappointed as I was going to be away that week. However, they still wanted to send me a diary and have me fill in that I watched no television that week, and said I would have the chance to list which shows I had recorded to watch later. However, I got a later note from them saying that there had not been sufficient response from the area and the survey was not going ahead.
Fast-forward a year and I got the same phone call only this time the survey went forward and I received the diary to fill out. First there were a few basic questions - did I have cable or satellite, did I have a VCR, did I have DVR service, how many TVs etc. But the bulk of it is just that, a diary with spaces for you to write down what you watched (program and channel) covering every 15 minute segment of the whole 8 days. You also needed to indicate how many people were watching and give their ages. It was also possible to note down when a show had been originally recorded, if it was watched on DVR (although for VCR you only noted what you recorded, not watched). It was even possible to note down when the TV was on but no-one was watching (although how you were supposed to know what program to put down then, I didn't figure out!)
The trouble with any sort of survey like that is that simply knowing that details are being recorded can have an effect on what you watch and it depends on people being honest in what they write down. As it happened, this was a very busy week at work so there were a couple of times I might've skipped a favorite program in summer-time repeats, but I felt I had to watch to ensure it went in the diary. Equally, when channel-hopping, there was once or twice I stopped on something that caught my eye, only to then realise it was a program I would never usually watch, so I was torn whether I should list it or not. Although the instructions said to write down any program you watched for more than 5 minutes, it was only possible to indicate 15 minute chunks which felt like it was giving undue weight to something marginal. There were also these vast pages of blank time and a temptation to watch something at 4AM just to help fill them up.
I suspect the survey was only a local one (I don't live in any of the major metropolitan areas Nielsen usually seems to use) so it may not have any impact on standard ratings. On the other hand, I know the sampling size Nielsen usually uses seems very small to me, so it's possible that even my one person/one television response may have some impact. So if for one week the ratings go crazy and Doctor Who is suddenly top of the table and all the reality shows like America's Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance suddenly plummet off the charts, well, you can blame me. 
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Aug 3, 2007 11:34 PM
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So... You're the one!!
I don't know if I could handle the pressure. It seems that it would be very tempting not to keep it real.
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Aug 4, 2007 2:50 AM
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LOL! That would certainly be interesting, wouldn't it?
Thanks for the insightful blog! I've always wondered how this works.
We would be a great household for what's on TV that no one is watching, because we always have the TV on even if no one is sitting in front of it. Like right now, some PBS show is on that I'm only listening to with half an ear.
Don't feel too bad about all the blank spaces in your diary! If your TV watching is anything like mine, people in your life complain you watch too much TV anyway and now you can see huge blanks of time when you watched no TV at all! Take that complainers!
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Aug 4, 2007 10:20 AM
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Thanks for taking the time to explain the process to us and share your perspective. I agree with your comments about survey participation perhaps altering viewing habits.
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Aug 4, 2007 11:52 AM
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I would be so tempted to cheat! And I'm with Famin in that it would be nice to see all that blank time. It would help me continue to kid myself. See, you don't watch that much tv, Amber.
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Aug 4, 2007 12:05 PM
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I too was called last year but was later sent a letter saying that my opinions were no longer needed (I hear that a lot!).
They never did get back to me - they did ask a lot of questions about DVR's and what I watched live (nothing!).
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Aug 6, 2007 2:18 PM
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