Clarifying Nielsen Ratings

There continues to be misinformation going around about viewers being counted for Jericho. I hope to clear up some misconceptions:


"I just got off the phone with a Nielsen representative. According to the very nice lady, DVR usage is only measured for Nielsen families...not for the general public. While I'm sure this is disappointing to a lot of people on the board, let's just remember that Jericho is already one of the most DVR'ed shows out there.

I just got off the phone with Dish Network, my satellite provider. My box is hooked up through a phone line. According to them, the only viewing information they collect is Pay Per view movies."



"Not one to take information at face value, I called on a Nielsen family friend to call the Nielsen Corp office and find out the accuracy. She was told that Nielsen will definitely not be compiling data from non-Nielsen DVR usage. Nielsen has based their reputation on providing networks with quantified data, backed up with demographics.

Since some brought up the option that satellite and cable providers could be compiling this data individually to provide to the networks, I made a call to a good friend who is assistant to the President of one such national company. She said that their company does not have the resources to provide this data to the networks at this time. She said some raw data could probably be compiled and presented (after an increase in staffing) but she had not heard of any requests from the networks for such data on a continual basis."