The Nielsen Rating System is used to determine how many viewers are watching a particular show, which in turn directly decides how much networks can charge for advertising, which then determines if the show is worth producing, i.e. is it making us money?  The system is entrenched in America and it's a load of crap. 

Simply put, it doesn't work.

The Nielsen System is supposed to accurately represent a cross-section of the American viewing public.  I say that's a bunch of baloney.  The Nielsen Ratings has in no way represented my viewing habits at all.  Come on, Dancing With The Stars?
    
How many of the Nielsen homes have a mid-forties semi-intelligent man who wants quality television?  Well, a normal mid-forties semi-intelligent man, not one that still practices the Vulcan death grip like one day he'll finally discover the secret twitch that makes it work.

I only know one person who's ever been a Nielsen viewer.  My granddad.  He had one of those boxes hooked up to the TV in the living room and he would leave it on while he napped.  And the way he slept, Nielsen could've recorded a seventy year old man watching a Who's The Boss marathon without him seeing a single episode.

You know how those boxes work?  You have to manually program in the age and sex of everyone in the room at-the-time-they-are-there.  Can you imagine the inaccuracy during holidays?  Or parties?  How about when a family of five has a box, and it's bedtime for the youngsters but the parents are too lazy to change the box?  Suddenly you have three kids under the age of eight logged in as watching Nip Tuck.

The Nielsen Ratings System is antiquated and no longer works, if it ever did.  Nielsen would argue that it's the best thing going but I say that's because it's the only thing going.  Nielsen's system is the number one reason I believe that we have so much crap on TV.  And mostly, I'm still just pissed that Arrested Development got cancelled.

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Amanda - Totally agree IP:142.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-03-14 12:14:27 We were a Nielson family once. I think each dot on the box represents approx 33,000 of your demographic... There were 8 dots on our box and 5 people actually programmed. There was a way to enter the last three dots as guests if you were ambitious enough. Which we normally weren't. But you can bet if I really liked a show, the whole house and my pets were watching it, even if I was alone at midnight. It doesn't work. We didn't watch freaking American Idol, yet it was always the highest rated show. Reply 0   0

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