Archive: News

This week we were a Nielsen family.  You may know that the Nielsen ratings are used to poll television viewers across the country to see what people are watching.  The networks and individual stations use these ratings to determine which shows to keep, which to dump, and how much to charge for commercial time on each show.  So being chosen to be polled is kind of cool, because you have direct influence over what is broadcast.

It's also something of a pain in the patootie.  You have to write down all kinds of stuff about each show you are watching, and indicate who in your house watched it.  The most annoying part is trying to figure out the original air day and time if you have recorded shows to watch later.  My family watches almost no live TV because we are in love with the fast forward feature of our DVR.  So we fought all week over who would write down what we were watching.  Everyone wanted someone else to do it.

The week between last Thursday and yesterday was what is called 'sweeps week'.  This is a week during which the networks know that Nielsen is polling, so they beef up their lineups to attract bigger audiences.  I was surprised at how dismal the offerings were, especially over the weekend.

I often think that Newton Minow's 'vast wasteland' remark is more true today than it ever was when he made that speech in 1961.  Minow was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at the time, so the comment carried a lot of weight.

"When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers - nothing is better," he told the National Association of Broadcasters. "But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

Today we have about two hundred channels on cable, and I can't tell you the number of times I go through the guide then turn off the TV and read a book.  Heck, I'd usually settle for an old original Star Trek rerun -- so I don't think I'm that picky.  But -- yecch -- the need to fill every minute 24/7 with content and commercials has dredged up a huge dung heap of really awful content!

Does anyone really like those pundits on the news stations?  Doesn't anyone like actual news any more?  With facts and things that really happened and no stupid opinions barked out by rude people who shout at each other?

And so many of these reality shows -- who comes up with the ideas?  Does anyone really, truly want to watch an hour show about the junk that collects between your toes?  (Yeah, I made that up.  The real shows are worse.)

And most of the so-called situation comedies -- did their writers and producers forget they are actually supposed to be funny?  Or at least not offensive?

To have this vast a wasteland experience during sweeps week was a real surprise.  I thought all the networks would be scrambling to impress me and I would spend the week glued to the television.  Somehow I managed to read one and a half novels that week.

How many times has a show you like been cancelled?  I am almost afraid to like a show for fear that I will jinx it!  So here was a chance to weigh in on the shows I like and it would have a positive impact on their survival.

Normally I say no to surveys of any kind.  I hate telephone solicitation calls, and have made sure that all our phones are on the Federal No Call List (and I am usually not very nice about telling this to telephone solicitors).  But when Nielsen called I thought, here is a way to influence what I see on TV.  So I was nice to the caller and agreed to be among the chosen.

There are some shows I really look forward to.  There is also a bunch that I find amusing enough to spend time watching, especially when I am too tired to do anything else.  Then there are shows I'll suffer if I am desperate enough to watch TV when I really don't want to.  Finally there are the shows that don't even meet that low bar -- I'd rather turn off the TV and watch water boil or paint dry than watch those shows.

That brings a responsibility.  Was there a temptation to lie to beef up the shows I like?  Actually not.  I don't know, just writing down what we were actually watching was good enough for me.  I felt lousy when we watched some piece of fluff because there was nothing else on, because there is really no way to weight your choices.  I really think 'The Good Wife' is excellent TV.  Not so much a rerun of 'Dharma and Greg'.  There is no real way to say that -- there is no five star rating or like button in the Nielsen diary.

All in all I am glad we did it.  The fights over who would write down the data didn't break up our family or put us off actually watching shows we wanted to see.  Like it or not, the television industry is very important in most people's lives.  There are few media of any kind that have so engaged people, ever.  So helping to determine its path, even in as mundane a way as writing down what we watched in a paper diary, was a good thing to do.

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