I got a packet in the mail yesterday, from the Nielsen Ratings people. The packet contained a brochure, a survey a pre-paid envelope and a website where those of us who had decided to join the latter part of the 20th century could log on and complete the same survey, further decreasing the usefulness of the USPS. Oh yeah, it also had a two dollar bribe to convince me that I should complete the survey.
I did.
Unfortunately, the survey was only there to collect some demographic information about my household, to see if we were an ‘appropriate’ family from which to collect ratings information. So I don’t get to fire Jay Leno yet.
But there’s the rub, I never watched any late night talk shows; at least not during their regularly scheduled times. Having a DVR means I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want. I have no proof, but I believe that I would be in the majority of Americans, having a DVR.
And that’s the problem. We don’t watch commercials anymore. I, for one, get upset - very upset - when I’m watching a live television show and I’m forced to watch commercials, without the ability to jump past them, on to the programming I actually want to watch.
So I’m a non-commercial watcher, which makes me less appealing to the Nielsen people. I also don’t watch a lot of the shows who’s continued existence still startles me. (For example, a little late, but I never understood why everyone ‘loved Raymond.’) And, worse, I don’t watch any competing shows in the same time slot. I don’t watch time slots. I watch shows that my DVR records for me. And those that it misses, I have Hulu.
I am a programming watcher, not a TV watcher.
And Nielsen doesn’t care about me. Until they figure out how to count those of us who watch programs, and until the producers of these programs figure out how to turn a profit from the production of these programs, I am irrelevant. I just watch what I like.
And ‘they’ give Jay his show back and David Spade is still on TV. There is no justice.
