Conference ljsrv1::tv_chatter

    First, thanks Mike for taking the time to type all that in.
    
    I don't really care what the ratings are - even though they are
    'gosspel' to the networks.  I am currently taking a course as part of
    my degree, regarding TV and Radio and the chapter we are currently on
    discusses how the ratings are done, how they 'scientifically' represent
    the population and which ratings companies do what and I still think
    its a bunch of bunk.
    
    I like what I like and it all depends on my mood, what I am going
    through in my life and frankly what day of the week it is.  I really
    don't pay much attention to thenumbers game - I like and enjoy shows
    all over the ratings spectrum.
    
    Joyce

re .1

Of course the ratings aren't going to determine what you watch this week
but they may well determine what you can watch next season. If a series
ratings are consistently poor it will be cancelled. It's an unfortunate
but unavoidable fact of the television business. So while I personally
could care less how many other people are watching a particular series it
really is important to me if I want that series to continue to be shown.


Randy

        Re -.1
>>                                                       ... If a series
>> ratings are consistently poor it will be cancelled. It's an unfortunate
>> but unavoidable fact of the television business. 
        
        To be more accurate, it's an unfortunate fact of the *American*
        television business. Fortunately in the UK we have had a long
        tradition of low ratings programmes that the BBC has had the
        confidence to stick with into several series (if Monty Python
        had been made in the US, for example, it wouldn't have survived 
        the first few shows!).
        
        Regretably however, there are ominous signs that even British
        TV is becoming ratings led -- as 7 million Eldorado viewers
        will tell you :-(
        
        Ian.

    I'm of couurse speaking for myself when I say that although Monty
    Python is occasionally amusing so wasn't "my mother the car" and *that*
    got cancelled. The BBC would've been doing the world a favor by
    scrubbing MP.
    
    Ken

    I can't stand the method of rating television viewers, that the
    "Nielsens" conduct.  Last year, being extremely upset over yet another
    tv show that I loved get cancelled, I called the Nielsens base in New
    York I believe it was.  I made it very clear how I felt about the
    inaccuracy of their rating system, seeing that I know absolutely none
    of mye friend nor myself have ever been a "Nielsen Family."  They
    apologized for that, and I was sent a 15 page brochure on how their
    ratings work.  It was pretty ridiculous if you coule read between the
    lines.
    
    I imagine one day, some form of recording ratings will come right with
    your TV when you buy it.  That seems like the mose appropriate way.
    Just like we get a cable box when we want cable.  This was it will be
    extremely accurate.  Maybe not 100% proof, but at least "everyone" will
    feel they are havings something to do with supporting their favorite tv
    shows.
    
    Oh well, we'll have to wait and see.
    
    Karen

RE: .5
    
>    I imagine one day, some form of recording ratings will come right with
>    your TV when you buy it.  That seems like the mose appropriate way.

It seems to me that such a box already exists:  the cable box.  

Your cable box knows who you are.  It has to, in order to allow you to watch
HBO but not allow me to watch HBO, since you pay for it and I don't.  It also
knows what channel you are tuned to at any given moment.  It seems to me the
simplest of tasks for the cable company to query your box at any given time
interval and say "who are you, and what channel are you tuned to?".

Does anyone know whether this is being done today?  With the growing number
of households connected to cable (and especially since those households are
probably very attractive to advertisers, since they have a few extra bucks
to throw away), you would think this would be being done already.

-- Ken Moreau

  There are a couple of problems with polling cable boxes. 

  First, the ratings would be biased toward people with cable. Advertisers want
a more random sample. For example, people are more likely to have cable if they
live in a city versus the country, live in an apartment complex versus a
house, and are moderately well off rather than rich (they have their own dish)
or poor (they use the antenna). 

  Another problem is that polling cable boxes without asking first might not be
allowed in all jurisdictions. In some states it might be perfectly legal but
other states may decide that gathering information electronically from an
individual's house without their permission may be a flagrant violation of
their constitutional right to privacy. 

  In either case they would be left with a sample that was not representative
of the average household and sponsors would be less likely pay them for their
information.

  George

Add into the mix that audience demographics plays a large part in determining
what stations can charge for the commercial spots. I'm sure we've all heard
about shows that rank lower in overall ratings but high in the "well sought
after 18-35 age target audience"

You couldn't find out who was watching the tv by polling the cable box. Well,
I suppose you could if you had a fingerprint recognizer built into the remote
control.

Plus there are a lot of systems out there that you don't need a cable box for
unless you are going to watch premium stations. My company doesn't scramble
anything except the pay movie stations. 

Metz

RE: .8

That is a very good point about *exactly who* is watching.  I hadn't 
considered that, and it is of course very important.

RE: .7

>First, the ratings would be biased toward people with cable. Advertisers want
>a more random sample. 

To me that is an attractive feature of this system, not its downfall.  TV is
getting more and more into "narrow-casting" like magazines (where there are
multiple magazines devoted to a very narrow group of people, such as trout
fisherman or model aircraft builders), as opposed to "broadcasting" like the
old days with 3 networks and nothing else.

Having this technology as one component of ratings services (not the only
component, you do still need ratings books for people without cable), would
seem to be very interesting to certain advertisers who are after a specific
market segment.

>  Another problem is that polling cable boxes without asking first might not be
>allowed in all jurisdictions. In some states it might be perfectly legal but
>other states may decide that gathering information electronically from an
>individual's house without their permission may be a flagrant violation of
>their constitutional right to privacy. 

Oh, George, you keep bringing of up points which may be of interest to a few
minor law scholars, but which have no relevance to advertisers.  Having the
law put a stop to advertisers gaining access to information on consumers?
How ridiculous.  The law can stop the CIA, FBI, and other law enforcement
offices from gaining access to information on people, but it will certainly
not be allowed to stand in the way of advertisers who want to sell you
something.   (I wish that I was joking).

-- Ken Moreau

    Another problem with using cable boxes for viewing data is that mine's
    always on, whether or not I'm watching.  It's just the TV that I turn
    on & off.  Assuming I'm not alone in this practice, I don't think you'd
    get very accurate results this way.
    
    John

    There was a recent NOVA (I think) about the various ratings systems
    currently in use, as well as some high-tech versions being proposed.
    The problems with most of those that involve gadgetry include privacy
    issues (for passive devices that "watch" - among these was a thing that
    could "view" the area in front of the TV and do pattern-matching on the
    faces of whoever was sitting there, to identify who was watching - or
    at least, who was in the room facing the set while the TV was on)
    and/or self-selected-audience problems (for active devices, such as a
    "wristwatch-computer" that could record signals from microchips
    embedded in magazine spines, or similar signals broadcast during
    commercials). (Other issues, such as cost, reliability, and - oh, by
    the way! - any indication of a relationship between the quality of a TV
    program and an audience's willingness to buy things advertised between
    the breaks of that program - also need to be considered. _I_ think the
    whole thing [the tying of advertising dollars to ratings] is very much
    like the stock market; it will work as long as people believe it works,
    and not a moment longer.)
    
    -b

RE    <<< Note 107.9 by ODIXIE::MOREAU "Ken Moreau;Sales Support;South FL" >>>

>>First, the ratings would be biased toward people with cable. Advertisers want
>>a more random sample. 
>
>To me that is an attractive feature of this system, not its downfall.  TV is
>getting more and more into "narrow-casting" like magazines 

  All well and good, maybe that argues for a new ratings system to get those
types of numbers, but advertisers still want to know who's watching prime
time network programming and they want a non-biased source. Cable polling
will not give them that set of numbers.

> [privacy issues]
>Oh, George, you keep bringing of up points which may be of interest to a few
>minor law scholars, but which have no relevance to advertisers.  Having the
>law put a stop to advertisers gaining access to information on consumers?
>How ridiculous.

  It is a major misconception held by many that things like privacy rights
only apply to government intrusion. Yes that theory is held by many who like to
limit individual rights and in fact the current conservative federal Supreme
Court and many states have taken that view.

  However, other states take a more liberal view and are far more serious about
privacy and other rights. For example, a law in Massachusetts makes it illegal
for ** anyone **, public or private, to secretly tape someone and use that
information for their own purposes. You'll notice, for example, that shows like
60 minutes never secretly tape anyone in Massachusetts. Also you will never see
Boston area news programs using secret tapes to uncover alleged corruption
and/or other alleged scams. It would be illegal for them to do so. 

  A box which secretly recorded this type of information would almost certainly
fall under this law and would probably have problems in other states as well.
Since the law would allow information to be collected in some states but not
others, the sample would be biased and the information less useful for
evaluating network programming.

  George

I use to work in the Cable-TV industry, so I can supply some factual
answers to many of the wuestions being asked here.


1. Most of the Cable-TV systems in the U.S. are one-way comunications
   setups. In other words; the equipment, modems, amps, etc. are all
   geared to deliver a TV picture or computer carrier INTO your home.
   Even being able to just turn your box on and off for certain
   subscribed channels or pay-per-view events only requires communicating
   in one direction (every box reads the computer message, but only the
   one with the matching address obeys it).

   In order to get information FROM your home via cable would require a
   2 way communication setup. This means bi-directional modems, amps,
   etc. Since they can deliver their product and make a profit without
   it (their MAIN goal believe me!), most don't have it. It's expensive,
   requires more maintenance, and isn't needed.

   In cases where a 2-way communcation is needed, the phone usually
   does the trick. This is why most pay-per-view setups, or interactive
   TV (such as a music channel) require you to call and use a touch-tone
   phone to enter your info. Obviously, since everyone has a phone, and
   the cable people don't have to maintain or pay for it, there's not
   much incentive to use anything else.


2. There are a few 2-way cable systems in the U.S., and with the merging
   of HDTV, computers, multi-media, and cable-TV this may grow. Systems
   that ARE 2-way most certainly do have the ability of "asking" your
   box what channel it's on - I wrote software to do this myself. In
   fact, depending on programming, it could memorize every channel you
   watched and the schedules involved.

   It is also NOT illegal or considered an invasion of privacy to find
   out what channel you're on, any more than it is for the receiver of
   a phone call to know what number is calling it (caller ID), or for the power
   company to know how much electricity you are pulling at that exact
   moment in time. In fact, service providers use these abilities all
   the time to maintain service. This is NOT the same as taping a
   conversation. On the other hand, publishing or selling this info
   for other purposes would most certainly be another matter.

   If you are thinking "what if I'm watching the Playboy channel and
   they can find out"? Remember also that you have to "subscribe" to
   such things in the first place, so they already have to know you
   watch it :-). You can't subscribe to ANY service anomonously.


3. Yes, there exist devices that can detect what you are watching from
   outside your home. Primitive devices are called "sniffers" and these
   don't detect what you are watching, but are used to locate RF "leaks"
   in cable, joints, amps, etc. Cable operators are required by law to
   ensure that no RF leakage occurs in certain broadcast bands (aircraft
   for example).

   The more sophisticated devices that can tell what you are watching, or
   even display the screen of your computer do exist, and may be legal
   or illegal depending on what you are actually monitoring. Remember
   that the airwaves are freely protected by the FCC and considered
   public. Cable is not.



Keith Barrett