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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdavis" data-source="post: 1245558" data-attributes="member: 8704">Actually I was quite impressed with what I read up on the Nielson system, it is a very complex statistical model they have in place. The biggest problem I saw was the pathetic sample size. I'm sure that their are a lot of reasons involved with this but it's one of the first things you learn in any statistics class, The bigger the sample size the more accurate the results. It probably worked real well in the 70's and 80's when there were so many fewer choices for people to make in what they watched but now most basic cable services offer 30 to 60 channels + (not counting upgraded channel selections, digital cable selections or Satellite Dishes). That's a lot of choices to extrapolate from such a small sample size, and lets not even get into the fact that not everyone who becomes a Nielsen family is 100% honest or reliable, the box system relies on a remote control to tell it who is watching the show, if you forget to press your button when you watch a show you could be responsible for a show loosing thousands of dollars in advertising money, forget to hit the button when you get up and it thinks you watched TV all night long(my parrot watches 8 hours of Cartoon Network a day while we are off to work/school, would you really want my bird's viewing habits counting for ratings, he whistles a mean Ed Edd and Eddy theme though). Another part of it is they rely on written diaries too which is entirely subjective (and if I am reading right are a separate sample entirely from the set top boxes). All in all the biggest problem isn't that it's a flawed system, it's that it is the only system, there is no balance or way of checking their numbers because they are a monopoly, so we really don't know how well the system works.   Here is a good article on the system and problems with it: <a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/entertainment/s_165677.html" target="_blank">http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/entertainment/s_165677.html</a>Here is a article on future technology and present problems: <a href="http://www.cofc.edu/~ferguson/bcp/updates/chap2/TV%20ratings%20system%20getting%20tech%20upgrade.htm" target="_blank">http://www.cofc.edu/~ferguson/bcp/updates/chap2/TV%20ratings%20system%20getting%20tech%20upgrade.htm</a>Nielsen's looking into TIVO: <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-948580.html" target="_blank">http://news.com.com/2100-1040-948580.html</a>Boston stations don't support Nielsen ratings and are doing good ad buisness anyway (the fee for Nielsen's service is $750,000!?!): <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/10/07/story4.html?page=1" target="_blank">http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/10/07/story4.html?page=1</a>Details into how the system works: <a href="http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/matharticles.htm" target="_blank">http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/matharticles.htm</a></blockquote>

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