Neilsen families…network tools

Over and over again smart, intellectually savvy programming is compromised in response to the viewing habits of a very small percentage of our population.  Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies may not have appealed to the Nielsens, but from what I hear, the Schultzs, the Jones, and the Kennedys loved it.   It is rumored that NBC’s Life is treading water while the network decides its fate.  In the world of cookie cutter cop dramas like Law and Order:  Give me a break and CSI: Enough already, Life provides a breath of fresh air to a genre in desperate need of resuscitation. 

Having heard last week the long running daytime soap opera, Guiding Light, was being canceled due an average 0.9 Nielsen ratings share, I thought I would do a little investigating.  Just who are these Nielsen families, and just what DO they watch?  What does a 0.9 share mean?  What is their definition of a “representative family”?  I would be willing to bet that the viewing audience of OTALIA’S Big Purple Dreams is larger than a collective 0.9 share, and we all know they are watching Guiding Light.

From what I can gather from reading, Nielsen families are at first solicited by random phone calls.  This ought to tell you something as caller ID would keep most intelligent consumers from answering.  Next, a small stipend is offered.  Once again, this is a red flag.  Nielsen family lottery amounts will never be published, however, I can’t imagine the commitment to be all that profitable, especially in this economy.  And let’s face it, if there isn’t enough in it for a new pair of Jimmy Choo’s, then I’m not doing it!  So there you go, they lost the well dressed, female professional. 

For those unfortunate enough to answer the phone, and for those who are willing to accept the monetary contract, a “people meter” developed in 1987 is attached to your television set.  Admittedly, new advances like digital television have posed challenges for Nielsen Media Research and their ability to continually determine who is watching, but hey, no body watches digital, right? 

Families in smaller markets and others deemed not people meter worthy for one reason or another, receive “diaries”.  If this summons up visions of a teenage girl, lying on her bed, iPod in her ears, writing, “Dear Diary, today I totally watched Gossip Girls.”, then think again.  In all probability, Nielsen families franticly fill out these diaries with little recall of the week’s viewing habits mere minutes before they are popped back into the mailbox. The reality is, for a stipend of a couple of bucks, these handwritten dinosaurs have gone the way of the thank you note and the perfume scented love letter.  For better or for mostly worse, no one has time anymore for handwritten correspondence.  “Prbly L8 4 dnr gtg <3″ is the customary prose I receive from the one who loves me most. 

A “people meter” can be programmed to determine a few things like age, sex (that’s gender, not amount), and the channel/program viewed.  The meter is also used to reflect categories of viewers such as African-American and Hispanic.   I guess Asian viewing habits are not quite so important.  And recognize any other glaring omission?  Where are those Subaru buying, Carnival Cruise loving gays and lesbians?  I guess when it comes to determining Nielsen families, the Defense of Marriage Act, left the alternative familial unit cancelled by the networks. 

A mistake?  I think so, and if what I hear about Procter and Gamble shopping around Guiding Light with the same sex storyline of OTALIA as the high beam, they just might have experienced an epiphany themselves.  This is an extremely powerful consumer group.  According to a newly published analysis by Witeck-Combs Communications, the total buying power, or disposable personal income, of American LGBT adults in 2008 was $712 billion up from $690 billion in 2007.  That’s a hell of a lot of soap…for the unclean…and the anti-Nielsen.