Comments on: Bill O'Reilly and Fox News Channel vs. Nielsen

By: clutz12001

clutz12001 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:56:31 +0000

I find it interesting that the more highly-rated cable new network is the net in which the questioning originated here.

In any case, Nielsen does have far too small a sample size to accurately measure audience fractionation. Reference: Charter Cable Company’s set-top-box data and “The Jade Channel” in the L.A. area. I don’t have a link to the article handy as it was a few years ago. The point was that, when STB data was used, The Jade Channel was among the top 10 most-viewed channels on Charter Cable in L.A. However, due to Nielsen’s small sample size, The Jade Channel wasn’t even factored into analysis.

I really like what TNS and DirecTV are doing in the DirecTView system; they have 100,000 households in a market of 17.1 million. That’s a pretty good sample size, and a pretty good way to gage what’s happening on the smaller cable/satellite and “exclusive” channels. I just wish they were more open to the public with their results.

By: Mikey

Mikey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:58:22 +0000

In effect what Cheatwood is saying is not that the sample is too small but that the Fox News audience is too small for the ratings to be credible.

Interesting position for a FNC exec to take.

By: Clyde McPhat

Clyde McPhat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:53:05 +0000

Holly…Nielsen already uses an insanely large sample size on the more profitable sides of their business. There might be 40,000 or more scanners in HH’s to register product usage, but the TV portion is a disaster. Theya nnounced yesterday that they donot have a handle on Universe estimates for second tier cable nets. They are having a really hard time with the explosion of tiers in both cable and sat. And their time shifted data is wrought with errors that can be explained away, but they are still errors. Also, the wild swings in ratings from live to live +SD to live +7 to C3 commercial ratings ae alos problematic. Nilesen is trying to do everything that is aasked of them, but they cannot accomplish half of what is actually needed.

BTW, someone asked a couple of posts ago about Olbermann and a repeat. He has at times over the last year had a live 8pm show and a repeat at 11. then MSNBC would periodically go to their crime shows at 11, and then they changed back and now KO is at 1000pm on the repeat.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:46:26 +0000

Probably not without having an insanely large sample size that would be cost prohibitive and produce too much data.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:43:07 +0000

You’re probably right. But I do wonder if there’s any way to really accurately measure them.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:19:48 +0000

Julia, I’m not really arguing against Nielsen’s and I know they are increasing their sample size precisely to address this. I’m just not entirely sure that the system last year or this year would accurately measure the viewership for a show airing at 2 in the afternoon on “Fine Living” or “Speed Network”.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:15:16 +0000

To be clear, I’m talking about measuring viewers for the really small nets only available with the highest priced packages, not major cable nets like TNT.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:10:24 +0000

Which is probably why Nielsen has been increasing the sample size so steadily. The numbers I have are:

2002: 5,000 HHs
2008: 12,000 HHs (this is probably last season, since this article says 14,000)
2011: 37,000 HHs

And it was 2,500 before they increased to 5,000.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:03:06 +0000

Robert, I routinely defend Nielsen and their sampling, I think it is reasonably accurate for the major nets. However, I do think the sample size can cause questions and errors for the small cable nets. With 200+ cable options, its seems possible that the ratings for some shows could come from one or two people.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:34:10 +0000

I think it’s mostly the politics of PR — and in this case isn’t about the news itself but about the “opinion” shows like O’Reilly and Olbermann (apparently the whole thing started because of something O’Reilly said on air). I further suspect that KO has more benefit from the LIVE+SD numbers as a percentage increase than O’Reilly does (and what you suggest about age probably plays into that).

But I am just speculating. I think it’s a tempest in a teapot but something about it not being a big enough sample at the level of 8-10 homes does resonate with me and I need to think about it more. my interest here isn’t with the news channels, but rather so many shows, especially on cable that have ratings roughly the size of some of the shows on the cable news channels.

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:26:43 +0000

First of all, Nielsen is planning on increasing to a sample size of 37,000 HHs by 2011, so they are working on this already. Second, why do they care so much about DVR? Do cable nets have more to gain from from DVR viewing? And lastly, could it possibly just be that 1) with older viewers, you’re going to get less DVRs and 2) most people don’t find it necessary to DVR the news?