Are Nielsen TV Ratings Still Practical?

For years, I’ve been watching TV with the blissful ignorance of the entire Nielsen rating system. Sometimes I acted like I knew what good ratings and bad ratings were but in all honesty, I didn’t have a clue.

So I decided it was high time to find out.

Learning what goes into these ratings and the fact that this system was last updated as a whole in 2017, was disconcerting.

Before that, it was 2005. 12 years between those updates. And even then, the update in 2005, which allowed DVRs and TiVos ratings to be counted, was pulled only a year later, because viewing shows after the fact significantly impacted ratings.

Duh.

In the 1920s, Nielsen Media Research began with marketing research and performance ratings. In 1947, the group released their first radio ratings, and in 1950, they moved to TV.

The company started with randomly selected families but moved to a more structured pattern in the 1970s. In 1971, they gained the ability to send ratings through a telephone line, which first allowed overnight ratings.

In 2017, their latest update, Nielsen announced that they would track select programs on Hulu, Netflix, and YouTubeTV in digital ratings.

So what does this all mean?

If you own a TV, you are a Nielsen family, and you last turned your TV off while it was on ABC, whether or not you watch Grey’s Anatomy with your TV on Thursday night at 9/8c, Nielsen logs it as watched.

Now, this watch log comes with points and percentages — not many of which make sense.

Because there’s a set table of rating samples, in 2021, and even years prior, TV shows often hit 0.0, or only as high as 0.9 in point totals. For example, in its 2021 season premiere, The Bachelorette drew 3.2M viewers with a 0.8 rating.

However, on June 13th, 2021, The Chase had 3.5M viewers, yet it only had a 0.5 share rating.

This is most likely because Shares, or the point-system that comes with viewers, varies depending on whose TV is turned to a certain station, or whose TV is actually on, whereas the number of viewers takes in both of those.

Looking into this data felt like I was doing my taxes, plus my mother’s taxes, plus my brother and sister’s taxes. Long story short: I don’t understand it.

If Nielsen is accounting for only certain households, in only certain areas, at times including when the TV is off, how is this a factual, realistic rating system?

In short, it’s not.

I asked 16 of my friends and coworkers about their TV watching habits. None of them are Nielsen families.

All 16 of them are currently watching something that’s on-air right now. Six of them have cable, and one has Hulu Live. Everyone else relies on streaming services.

Three of the 16 viewers live out of the country, with two in Canada and one in England, which means that unless they’re watching a specific show that Nielsen is tracking through Hulu or Netflix, and the two countries don’t even have Hulu, their ratings do not matter, no matter how much they love or watch a show.

All of these viewers are under the age of 50. Seven of the 16 live alone. Every single one of them has some sort of streaming service. (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, etc.) Seven of these people watch Netflix the most, and behind that, tied with three people each, is Hulu and Disney+.

Amazon Prime is most watched by two people, and HBO Max by one. If less than half of these people have cable or sustainable ways of even possibly contributing to ratings, how are they to help the shows they watch that are currently on the air?

This year, NBC canceled six shows, the most from any network. Among these shows were Manifest, a show that’s currently trending in Netflix’s top 10 (and has been since even before the now series finale was aired on June 10th, 2021.)

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was also canceled this year, even though both Jane Levy and Alex Newell were nominated for Golden Globes, and Critics Choice Awards, respectfully.

So… why?

Using this website, I was able to find the season’s average ratings for each canceled show on NBC (minus Connecting, which was canceled after only four episodes with the rest sent directly to Peacock, NBC’s streaming service):

• Debris: 2.787M
• Good Girls (whose season is not yet finished): 1.474M
• Manifest: 3.087M
• World of Dance: 4.009M
• Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: 1.822M

Now, realistically, the excuse of World of Dance being canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic might have made some sense, but Deadline reported that it was canceled because of low ratings.

When we look at it through the lens of other game shows on NBC, however, it does make sense. The Masked Singer season five had an average of 5.114M viewers, and The Voice season 20 had an average of 6.464M viewers.

Now, though, we must circle back to the issue of availability. Nielsen homes are “scientifically chosen” by locations of houses or apartments. You cannot request to be a Nielsen household, and if you are, it’s asked that you not discuss it publicly.

It’s worth noting, though, that ratings aren’t the only reason a show can be canceled. Wynonna Earp ended with Season 4 because the season itself was derailed due to production costs.

GLOW was renewed, then un-renewed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as most of the show has characters in close contact, and it was a hefty budget to pack on top of COVID-related costs. 

There are even a few instances like Castle, which ended surprisingly in its eighth season after major backlash following the news that the series planned to continue without Stana Katic and Tamala Jones. 

This is a system that strictly works in, and for, the USA, even though millions of other TV watchers worldwide. I had friends in Australia devastated that Prodigal Son was canceled. A friend in Saudi Arabia watches Good Girls.

All six of these recently canceled shows were canceled due to low ratings.

Then, immediately after their cancellations, Manifest, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and Good Girls trended worldwide. Many viewers were shocked and upset, already calling for campaigns to save the shows (none of which have come to fruition).

In September 2020, Nielsen started releasing a weekly list of the top 10 shows watched on streaming, but as stated before, they only have ratings for select programs, and not across all networks.

If TV watchers are meant to rely on a system that asks its users to be silent, doesn’t track every piece of media available to us, and is limited to one of many, many countries watching these same shows, how is it really for us?

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