Hidden ratings, hiding money

suckers (Photo credit: reallyboring)

If you searched, say using Google News, for the company Nielsen ratings, you’d find the typical assemblage of stories about how many hearts the American Idols sang their way into or which broken-hearted Bachelorette attracted the most viewers.

Why?

Because these stories are the kind that advertisers want to hear, and they are the kind that media practitioners find easiest to report. If you really want to know about the week in TV, or in any other media for that matter, just visit the Nielsen data page, enhanced for ease of access.

Among the variety of reports, however, stands out one from the New York Times, headlined “In Networks’ Race for Rating, Chicanery is on the Schedule” (at least this is how it appears online).

The article uncovers just a few of the ways the big television networks have “rigged” their programming and advertising schedule so that post-hoc ratings will appear more favorable for a particular show or time period of television viewing. Every minute of watched television in America translates to cash in the networks’ eyes and increased exposure in the advertisers’, and considering how much television Americans watch, there is a lot of money to be had.

And a lot of money to be lost.

What is most surprising about this article is how sources at Nielsen, the organization surveying American households to better understand television watching habits, react to the public news that television executives are openly rigging the system in their favor.

A Nielsen executive, who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements with clients, said Nielsen did have guidelines for what could be done with shows, but recognized that networks would “format their programs to generate maximum ratings impact — call it gimmicks, or call it spin.”

Unless the gimmick results in something egregiously false, Nielsen does not step in. The worse that might happen would be a sternly worded letter.

A network executive interviewed for the story likened any discipline from Nielsen as a “slap on the hand.”

In light of this, it’s worth reading Nielsen’s “About Us” statement on its website.

As a global leader in measurement and information, we believe providing our clients a precise understanding of the consumer is the key to making the right decisions — decisions that can lead to profitable growth. At Nielsen, we’re always innovating to keep pace with emerging market trends and the increasingly diverse, demanding and connected consumer.

After nearly a century, we’re more focused and skilled than ever at providing the complete view of what consumers watch and buy through powerful insights that clarify the relationship between content and commerce. Whether our clients are in media, consumer packaged goods, telecom or advertising, our expansive data and measurement capabilities provide market context and confidence through our long history of innovation and integrity.

A long history of innovation and integrity. The New York Times piece seems to reveal that neither of these practices are in play with respect to the largest television networks. Perhaps its true that the television executives have found a way around the Nielsen system and, though Nielsen recognizes this, they are unable to innovate solutions at a pace necessary to keep up with what is happening on the side of television. This, of course, is no excuse for a loss of one’s overall integrity to the advertiser, who spends millions of dollars based on these somewhat dishonest approach to surveys and analytics.

On a more minor note, this also makes those of us who rely on surveys for research look like crap.

Related articles

• Networks Resort to Trickery in an Attempt to Lift Ratings (nytimes.com)

An ideological proposal for local media collaboration

KWBU-FM | NPR for Central Texas

In Waco exist the four basic television news outlets (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox affiliates), one daily newspaper (Waco Tribune-Herald), and one NPR affiliate. Two years ago, our NBC affiliate was proud to be “first in high definition” while the CBS location was equally as proud with their slogan, “first online,” (and was trying very hard to become the second in HD). Around the same time, the Trib chose to place all of its content behind a pay wall. Just recently, the president of KWBU announced that its current funding goal is far from being met (they will begin the winter pledge drive tomorrow).

Everyday when I partake in these three media types, I wonder similarly to all of Robin Scherbatsky‘s friends in the CBS show “How I Met Your Mother” – is anyone out there actually watching/listening to/reading this?

If we buy in to the rumor that media are dying, especially in locales where subscriptions or funding are difficult to come by, why not think forward toward greater collaboration among outlets?*

There are reasons beyond funding that the major newspapers, for example, are able to offer at least some free content online. If this is a contentious statement to you, notice that the major papers all operate on some kind of online subscription or pay wall method now. Major outlets have the ability to produce truly unique content for featuring online. This, of course, is done in the hopes of drawing more visitors and increasing possible advertising revenue.

Smaller, local papers don’t have human or technological resources to achieve this kind of content creation, in the way of video and audio additions. If a merger were created, new content opportunities would be available to each outlet, and some costs, such as operating independent websites, would be eliminated.

This may not work in all situations and is an extremely ideological suggestion (ideological in that I fully believe all these media should survive and flourish), but it’s certainly worth meeting about.

*Caveat: I’m not trained as a business man. This means that I have not thought out the full financial implications of this suggestion, though it does seem to make logical sense.

On the ancient practice of product placement

Discoblog, affiliated with Discovery magazine (no relation to the Discovery Channel), had a piece claiming that network television producers are now keenly aware that the advertising method popularly dubbed “product placement” no longer works to attract consumers. In fact, if you watch some of the more tongue-and-cheek animated films, or either comedy news show on Comedy Central, product placement has become sort of a joke.

What has replaced the ancient practice of product placement is what’s being called “behavior placement.” Behavior placement is seen as using media to “force” a specific kind of behavior upon viewers. The blog uses the example of “going green” as it has been used by NBC during this spring’s lineup of television programs. The wise advertisers who support the “going green” movement naturally gravitate toward this kind of programming, and what we consumers get in the end is a jumbled narrative of what it means to “go green” without any real context for understanding environmental care outside of comedy shows and soap commercials.

You can read more of the actual blog for a better explanation.

The one opinion I do have about this practice is that viewers never actually learn about what it means to be environmentally friendly through the television. We might learn that there is a new kind of clothing, hygiene product, or book on the market promoting environmentalism. If we pay close attention, we may even learn about some possible practices that can help us act more environmentally friendly. But, in the end what we’ve really done is associate an action with a television network.

Thus, NBC becomes the model with which we judge and associate environmental friendliness, and the fringe activist groups working to persuade the government about the need for increased environmental awareness are ignored and under-supported.

Take a look at this clip from a spring episode of The Office.