In its latest study out today, Nielsen estimates that 2.5 million US households cannot receive digital television signals and so are without TV entirely.
You can debate the validity of that number, it does fly in the face of the relatively few calls to FCC call centers set up to receive calls about the analog shut off, but correct or not, I don't think there's any other numbers out there to compare it with.
What I find interesting are the stories that are beginning to pop up about how ratings have or have not been effected by the analog shut off.
I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions about ratings effects at this point because of the way Nielsen measures ratings.
Nielsen gathers its national ratings data from approximately 20,000 households equipped with people meters. While Nielsen does its best to mirror the US population demographically, it seems to me that simply being a Nielsen "family" implies a certain level of self selection.
If you have enough of a clue to manage being a Nielsen family, that implies to me that you're less likely to have been been caught by surprise by the analog shut off, and are more likely than average to be prepared.
The folks who got caught by the cut off are the least aware or the most procrastinating or disadvantaged in some other way that would likely keep them off people meters as well. So, I won't be drawing any conclusions about how the ratings have or haven't been effected by the shut off for awhile (maybe a long while), until there's a lot more information.
Well what about the people who just don’t have TV at all in their house… I mean there are people poor enough who don’t even own one or people who don’t want to have them because they think they are bad/evil/whatever. Maybe that would help that number, not just all because of the analog?
I didn’t realize there were so few nielsen households. We were told (about 8 years ago) that each person viewing counted towards 20,000 viewers.
Does Nielsen attempt to proportion broadcast versus satellite versus cable viewers in its sample, to mimic the general population? I understand they try to get census-comparable demographics, but I’ve never read much about their “cable versus broadcast” breakdown. It would not surpise me in the least to find Nielsen disproportionately samples broadcast-only households. Ratings might be affected if that’s the case.
Anna, Nielsen estimates for this season 2008-9 that there are 114.5 million US TV HHs and 115.76 million total US households. My reading of the report is that those 2.5 million who are now without TV are just from among the TV households, but I grant that I could be wrong about that.
As far as the the Nielsen sample size, with 20,000ish Nielsen people meter households and 114.5 million TV households, the ratio of all TV HHs to people meter HHs is about 5,700:1.
clutz, presumably they do try and properly sample cable/satellite/OTA households, but I have not seen anything I can point to that says they do.
My understanding is that there are homes in the Nielsen sample that were caught unprepared for the transition and they have simply been excluded from the sample.
Now, it’s very much debatable whether this is an appropriate thing to do. I kinda believe it’s a mistake because you are willfully excluding people who reflect a small portion of the behavior you’re trying to capture. Unprepared homes are part of the reality of the business right now, and they’re simply being excluded.
But like it or not, you will see no impact to the ratings from unprepared homes.
Here’s a question on my mind:
In my market, the NBC affiliate (and the CBS as well, at least at one point) owns an LP station which is currently used to broadcast weather information, along with delayed repeats of the most recent newscast. This programming is duplicated on one of the digital subchannels for the actual station.
Is there anything preventing them from just simulcasting their regular feed on the LP station, if they so chose?
Mikey, if that is in fact the case, it does seem wrong to me as well.
( 2,496,100 / 114,500,000 ) * 20,000 equals exactly 436, so one could guess that 436 Nielsen households lost TV reception due to the digital switch
Clutz, Nielsen definitely tries to align its sample to mirror its “universe estimates”. Nielsen’s Universe estimates include a wide variety of data, which mostly are not commonly referred to, but Nielsen is on record that it attempts to have the panel mirror its universe estimates.
You see things regularly like TV Households, or the estimated size of the 18-49 population, or the number of homes with DVR, but they also track cable versus satellite versus OTA, basic cable vs premium cable, household income, number of homes who own trucks, pets, video game consoles, etc.
While we (and most everyone) focus on big aggregate numbers, much of the value, at least for the advertisers is in the more granular data slices. My guess is that if the actual sample was far out of sync with the universe estimates, you’d hear some public complaining about it.
Our CBS affiliate did the digital switch in February. People KNEW about the coming switch but for a variety of reasons they could not get a signal. Indoor antennas were a big problem. The ones being sold just would not work, or would only receive one or two of the channels offered. For some, the need to scan and rescan channels was a problem. Signal there one minute; not there the next partial digital break-up. The location of your TV mattered if you actually had a good indoor antenna. Some people just forgot to plug something in or their rooftop antenna was malfunctioning, maybe as simple as a loose wire. Problems were varied. We found the solutions were not cut and dried and certainly not as easy as plug it in and turn it on. Location and the right equipment were usually to blame, not a lack of knowledge about the transition.
In our house a TV (with converter box)on the north side needed an aerial antenna; on the south side the indoor antenna attached to a digital TV gets 6 of the 8 stations available. If you got an early box you might not get as many channels as a later box. The makes and ages of digital TVs might make a difference too. Quirky.
My husband works for the CBS affiliate and he was actually making a variety of indoor antennas that would work and taking them to people’s houses. Yes, the employees of television stations were actually making house calls, having to climb roofs or fit into crawl spaces. Our area is rural and some people cannot get cable or dish service, either because it is not offered or is not financially possible. These viewers depend on their over the air TV, especially since we live in an area known for tornadoes. (At least if the electricity is on and the station is not affected people could get their important weather information. I worry about the digital signal break-up. Maybe we should have been given coupons for portable weather radios too.)
My point is that there are a number of issues with the digital switch that were not fully anticipated and could not be addressed until the complete switch actually occurred. Now that the switch has happened hopefully the problems caused by this can be solved fairly quickly. Cross your fingers.
Ok, maybe it’s late, but the title of this post got me to thinking. Who’s keeping track of what the Amish are watching? Nobody, that’s who! Maybe we should set up some boxes to keep track of their viewing habits. My boxes would be… well, boxes, with a pencil and notepaper inside them, but that should work. Anyone who can churn their own butter shouldn’t find maintaining a record a chore. Keeping a log beats sawing one. The next step would be for Bill and Robert to set up a website called RealityByTheNumbers.com, where we could read things like “Sunset up 29% among viewers 18-49; flowers taking a hit in ratings”. Imagine a site where there’s not one season, but four! Where discussions about the future of Dollhouse center around an actual dollhouse! Where Chuck isn’t depending on Subway for his well-being but rather his buggy! Where everything viewed is in HD, widescreen AND 3D! Lastly, there’d be no conspiracy with these numbers because the subjects of them wouldn’t be able to view the website.
Just a thought.
Joseph, those diaries would largely be blank, because Amish folks rarely have time to sit and “watch” anything. Most diaries would list “Built a barn, baked several dishes and pies, mended clothing, fed the animals, fixed broken wheel on cart, and more…too busy today for any watching time, good night.”