We’re A Nielsen Family

I forgot to post this when I got this last week (my stomach bug took me out), but we’re a Nielsen Family (at least for the week). If you’re not aware of what Nielsen does, they’re the company that determines the fate of radio and TV shows around the country by determining the ratings for those shows. They do this by a variety of methods, but one of them is picking random folks to send TV diaries to log their TV viewing habits for the week. In return for the survey, they get a few bucks (we got $10).

The thing is, we don’t watch TV much at all. Our kids don’t watch much TV, and when they do, it’s for something specific that we have on video (we have to write “Pre-recorded DVD” in the spot instead of the show we’re watching). So, for the most part, the survey is blank.

I got a phone call tonight from the Nielsen folks, asking if we had any questions about the diary, comments, concerns, etc… . The lady I talked to was very nice, and sympathized that she was wasting my time by asking me these questions, but one thing she did point out that I didn’t realize is that I can post comments on here to say, for example, list why we’re not watching TV (as I mentioned it was fairly blank). If we’re not watching because everything on is crap, we can note it. If there are something on TV that we’re offended by, we can note it. If I’m pissed about something, we can note it, because, she said, people really pay attention to this stuff (but should couldn’t go into any details).

After that conversation, I thought about fudging with my results to keep some shows on the air, but Barney convinced me otherwise (now that he’s directly affected by the Nielsen’s). But man, think about how much you could screw things up. I just know these stupid ratings have gotten rid of some wonderful shows back in the day. Wonderfalls and Sports Night are two shows that come to mind that were ditched.

Anybody else have any great shows that got screwed by ratings?