Talk:Nielsen ratings/Archives/2013

American Idol's long tenure...

If American Idol really the #1 show for almost the last few seasons? In the Las Vegas area I'm not aware of anybody who watches it, as nobody talks about it or anything. So I'm wondering if the Nielsen ratings are flawed and can be manipulated.

Case in point: Married with Children. EVERYBODY watched this show, as the next day, we all talked about Al Bundy and his exploits. Yet, the weekly Nielsen ratings would state that Murder She Wrote had higher ratings for Sunday night. I strongly doubt that and disagree with that. Who are these viewers of Murder She Wrote? Why didn't we talk about Jessica Fletcher over Al Bundy the next day?

Also, with many, many households using digital boxes of some kind to get TV into their houses, can't Nielsen ratings use actual ratings based on the feedback of data from these boxes to see what people are really watching? It's like when Billboard switched to digital rankings in 1990 based on the actual UPC/SKU scans. It's amazing, that we based on actual UPC/SKU scans, that what is considered "popular" may be, in actuality, unpopular and unheard of.

Sierraoffline444 (talk) 18:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, unless you know everyone in Las Vegas and conducted a poll on their television watching habits that shows no one there watched American Idol, I think it's safe to say that at least one Las Vegas residence probably does watch American Idol - you just don't know them or you do and they didn't share that information with you. As for Married...with Children, perhaps you and all your friends watched it but I know plenty of people who can't stand the show and never watched it (yours truly included). I really don't know why you and your friends didn't talk about Jessica Fletcher. Maybe it's because you didn't watch the show? Seems kinda pointless to discuss a show and character that you didn't watch. It seems like you're trying to say that the Nielsen Ratings are bogus just because you don't find the shows that get (or got) high ratings (according to them) interesting. That's like saying the Beatles didn't sell a million+ albums because you don't own one of them or know anyone who does. There are people outside of your sphere who are interested in things you aren't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.72.173.203 (talk) 10:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Nielsen vs advertising industry

The article includes this quote: "Neal Gabler at the Norman Lear Center as well as Benjamin Shapiro, author of Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, have argued that the empirical evidence shows that for advertisers the 18-49 or 18-34 viewers are not more important, and may even be less important, than older viewers".

This seems tangentally related to Nielsen, who publish ratings for a variety of demographics. Instead, this is a criticism of television advertising industry, and shouldn't be included in the article. -109.158.75.28 (talk) 08:30, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Needs more and newer citations

This article needs more references. It also makes some assertions that depend upon references that are too old for an television industry that has undergone significant changes in the past five years. I used inline templates to mark some of the places this applies; I could have marked quote a few more... 72.244.200.210 (talk) 09:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The "Demographics" section discusses how the estimated demographics are used, but not what they are.

I have been searching for a list, or better yet a scannable graph of all the more important categories that Nielsen rates, preferably with a date of implementation for each category.

I am most interested in the basic sex and age breakdowns, but also ethnicity and gender preference could be helpful, as well as the out of home breakdowns.

Could someone do this, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.194.50 (talk) 19:23, 9 November 2013 (UTC)