With the, almost overnight success, of the digital video recording devices some people have been agonizing over the possibility of their favorite television shows getting cancelled if they don't watch their shows live because they are not contributing to the ratings for the show. I'm going to tell you if you're ultimately responsible for euthanizing your own favorite show by watching it previously recorded.
There are a few ways the media gathers ratings. In all the ways the families are selected at random and fully aware that they are participating. (They used to give them a little monetary compensation for their trouble. I'm not sure if they still do.) The first way they did it when they started was they had the members of the household keep a diary of what they watched and for how long. The diary was due on say Tuesday of every week. What they found was that at the beginning they were real thorough and towards the end it got vague and sloppy. Like any homework assignment I've ever done. lol I'm sure they filled their whole week (or what they remembered) out on the last day and mailed it just to be DONE. The other thing they found was that people tended to censor their reports of what they watched. Or maybe they simply just didn't remember watching that 3 hours of late-night Jerry Springer.
Like it tends to do, technology evolved, and they figured out a way to put a device on the TV that would record what was being watched and ask the household members to punch in their ID # when they were in the room watching and punch out when they left. This was good because it accounted for multiple family member and was able to provide more demographic-specific information. Little Susie watched Sesame Street and The Muphets (Oh, god, I'm showing my age...), not Jerry Springer and Elimidate. They found though that, as with the diary log, family members are good at it at the beginning and then they get real tired of punching all these numbers all the time, so they simply would not be as diligent.
It is my understanding that ratings are gathered today using a combination of diary log and TV device. Ratings are gathered from participating households according to what the Neilsen Ratings Staff considers to be the "typical" household demographic. Which is, undoubtedly pretty skewed. "Typical household" is relative, in my opinion.
When I was in school we watched a video about a device they were working on that would "scan" the room to see who was watching. That way "human" error was almost all-together eliminated. But do not be fooled, the sample size is microscopic compared to the number of people in the population. Ratings are a joke - even though EVERYTHING in the TV business depends on it.
Also, the Neilsen Ratings Staff-members have not caught up with society's shifting media practices. They have not figured out a way to measure previously recorded programs, and they have not factored in television shows viewed on the internet. Which is a whole different beast. Including, but not limited to, shows watched on cellular phones, iPods, computers, etc.
The good news is, no, your own personal previously recorded viewing habits are not killing your favorite show. (Disclaimer: granted that you are not currently participating in a ratings research program). The bad news is that since you are not participating, no, there is nothing you can do about it. Well almost nothing...here's some suggestions for the die-hards...
1. Go undercover at the Neilsen Ratings Company and find out who has these devices. Start lobbying to those households. It would help if you had voice scrambler and/or a real snazzy lawn-sign.
2. If that doesn't provide the instant gratification our generation has become so accustomed to, stay undercover at Neilsen Ratings Company and upload a "glitch" in the computer program. You American Idol Fans remember, Sanjaya? Uh-huh, human computer program glitch.
3. If they catch you and are fired, frame them with your plan to glitch the system and blackmail the infrastructure. Remember Everwood? it's worth it people.
4. If everything still falls apart for you, switch to bribes. Bribe everyone. Bribe your way out.
5. And if that still fails. Deny, deny, deny. You don't know nothing about nothing. John Mayer and Trick Daddy taught me that. Now I'm teaching you...
