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Location: the way nielsen ratings work and why they are flawed
Discussion: the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
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moeman32 |
the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
Mar 28 2008, 12:26 PM EDT
hello, as ive written in other posts, im a major in media and cultural studies in australia,and as far as i know, nielsen here is the same nielsen you have. so here goes my theory, and whomever can benefit i hope does... firstly, this information in its FULL form, not my edited down version is available here: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question433.htm pretty much, the way its done (and its got a pretty decent rate of accuracy as its the same technique used by quantitative med studies) is nielsen will try to take a sample of the population and then poll how many shows are taken. the samples are relative to the amounts of people in a community. for example: in a village theres 300 old people over 60, 400 people over 30 and 600 under 30. what nielsen would do in this simplistic example is randomly select 30 old, 40 30+'s and 60 under 30's the point being, X100 and u get a rough estimate of your population. the problem with this is, their random sample can easily be skewed and are therefore not really indicative of ANYTHING. for example, out of the 40/400 under thirties, only 10 out of the forty might watch a program like jericho. so thats 100 out of 400 in extrapolated terms. HOWEVER the reality might be that 250 of the under 30's watch jericho. therefore the number of 100 is less than half the viewer ship of under 30's. and so on. so in that one village the poll might be skewed completely and therefore show a programme to be niched programming when it isnt. however, this is only the math behind the science go to http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question433.htm for information on the physical side of the testing to better understand here im talking just numbers *CONTINUED IN REPLY AS COUNTER IS GOING DOWN* 4 out of 5 found this valuable. Do you?
Keyword tags:
jericho cancellation
petition
ratings
third series
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moeman32 |
1. RE: the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
Mar 28 2008, 12:38 PM EDT
*CONTINUED FROM ABOVE*therefore, armed with this interesting information, keeping in mind polled households select to be polled and therefore a whole population might be skewed, how can you affect their data in the post period obviously after the numbers have been counted? i found the nielsen website, and on it are office locations in their contact us page. i believe if we sincerely make enough of a ruckus about how many people actually DO watch jericho (as im certain its more than the approx 3mil mentioned in their current polls) we might be able to get them to upgrade the status and therefore possibly influence NBC to reconsider. its a long shot but one i think is worth taking and wouldnt cost anything but a trip to your local (if close enough) nielsen office or a 50c stamp. as following the above theory, they might poll a state that doesnt watch jericho at all (looks at those weird californian bohemian types ;) lol) and yeah, we may be getting VERY skewed results. here are the adresses and the nielsen website if you plan on shooting of an email and a sample text/letter of what you should say to them: to whomever it may concern, my name is ______ and i reside in the state of ____ and im a big fan of jericho. after having seen the last episode and having read your current statistics here: www.tvbythenumbers.com and believe them to be highly inaccurate. i am a viewer of Jericho myself and i have many friends who are and following is a petition to repoll a different group on their past viewing habits with questions aimed at jerichos results. any and all help would be greatly appreciated on your behalf, thanks. *ADDRESSES TO FOLLOW IN LAST PART Do you find this valuable? |
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moeman32 |
2. RE: the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
Mar 28 2008, 12:38 PM EDT
Nielsen Media Research's corporate headquarters are based in New York City. Our operational headquarters are located in Florida. We also maintain a network of regional sales offices throughout the United States. Contact information for each branch follows below. New York (Headquarters) 770 Broadway New York, NY 10003 Telephone: (646) 654-8300 Florida (Operations) 501 Brooker Creek Boulevard Oldsmar, FL 34677 Telephone: (813) 366-3000 Washington, D.C. 1317 F St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20004 Telephone: (202) 637-6120 Regional Sales Offices: Atlanta 1145 Sanctuary Parkway, Suite 100 Alpharetta, GA 30004 Telephone: (770) 777-4260 Chicago 200 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 2700 Chicago, IL 60606 Telephone: (312) 385-6500 Dallas 1717 Main Street, Suite 3300 Dallas, TX 75201 Telephone: (214) 290-9200 San Francisco 2 Embarcadero Center, Suite 1070 San Francisco, CA 94111 Telephone: (415) 249-6000 Los Angeles 6255 Sunset Boulevard, 19th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90028 Telephone: (323) 817-1200 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
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Spicoli6 |
3. RE: the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
Apr 1 2008, 12:35 AM EDT
I for one am not impressed with the idea of determining the worth of a show by what seems to be a random "poll" where the findings could be manipulated solely by redirecting the question to a different audience.Case in point: Jericho used to be on wed. @ 8 p.m.. This was a great time for myself and others in my family that enjoy the show. Now that it is @ 10 p.m. watching becomes a conflict with school and work. Work for me starts @ 3:30 a.m.. The same can be said for the folks who work any swing or graveyard shifts. So for myself, half the time i just fall asleep before it is even on. The alternative is to record the show or catch it on line. I enjoy watching on line. Now for the sake of argument, taping or dvr could be considered viewing since it happens at the time of broadcast. On line or mobile web is not so how do these viewers get consideration? The fate of Jericho, or any other show for that matter, should not be left in the hands of a randomly selected few who may or may not have the time to watch! I feel that Jericho has been put at an unfair disadvantage. So as for me I will continue to watch on line and hope they don't kill the show by killing everyone off. 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
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moeman32 |
4. RE: the nielsen ratings and how they work and how WE can use them :)
Apr 1 2008, 2:15 AM EDT
"I for one am not impressed with the idea of determining the worth of a show by what seems to be a random "poll" where the findings could be manipulated solely by redirecting the question to a different audience.the online viewers as of current DO NOT get consideration because of something advertisers base their fees on: demographics. theres no real way to gauge who is downloading your program via your stream and 500 000 viewers who stream once cane watch it over and over and youd have no clue.. and theyre not entirely random, theyre slightly selective so the pop. they get to sample is reflective (so 30 of 3000 of X and etc)but yes, time slots etc do ruin so it was a big ask on CBS to want more viewers, but advertise less and then change the timeslot. if you go to www.tvbythenumbers.com theres a good article there on why digital media gets no consideration in ratings Do you find this valuable? |
