The tracker behind the tube
Now Whiting is gearing up for the next big push. She plans to double the number of Nielsen "families" in the national ratings sample to 10,000 from 5,000 to better cover today's 500-channel universe. Nielsen has also begun measuring product placement and is working on capturing viewing experiences outside the home. For example, a TV show might be encoded with a numerical message that could be read by a meter worn on a belt. So, if a person wearing one of Nielsen's meters walked into a bar and Will & Grace were on TV, the pagerlike device would take note of it.
But perhaps nothing is more important for Whiting right now than to get Nielsen in tune with the age of digital TV. Today's meters can't measure programs recorded by digital video recorders like TiVo. Nielsen is working with TiVo to study how TV viewers use their DVR s and how they might be counted. "We have been talking to our clients about how to report this viewing for several years," she says. "And people still aren't sure quite how to think about it." Whatever standards Nielsen settles on, they are likely to be as controversial as the people meter, if not more so. "No matter what we decide, someone is going to be unhappy," Whiting says. Sounds as if she will need a lot of television time over the next year.
advertisement
