I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[yendi]

Both The Sarah Conner Chronicles and Dollhouse pick up a ton of extra viewers from DVRs as opposed to live Nielsen households.

The shock, of course, is at the idea that anyone still thinks that Nielsen ratings mean anything, statistically.

Comments

[coffeeinhell.livejournal.com]

True, the truthiness of the Nielsens has always been highly questionable. But at least they managed to fake it well enough for a long time that, as you point out, the industry could at least pretend that the numbers had some basis in reality. Not so much now.

Nielsen is a huge conglomerate (they own Billboard, Adweek, and The Hollywood Reporter, in addition to selling marketing info on TV, radio, and 'net) and they're deeply invested in old media. They outsourced a small number of jobs to India last year, and took heat for it. I think it's notable that they're returning to doing radio ratings this year for the first time in two decades -- I wonder if it's because, even with satellite radio, that market's not changing at the same pace as other media.