Nielsen is the company people are talking about when they talk about "ratings." The system is a lot more intricate than I'd thought, which does not mean its very good. Almost every TV, Cable, and advertising agency in America uses their ratings data, even though its not totally accurate. But before they do, it has to go through the
MAIL (like, on a truck) on a big
TAPE drive to
another company (you've never heard of us, trust me). Yes, the files are small enough for email, but they don't do that. Then some poor schmuck -- I won’t name him ;-) but he's on line allot -- takes that tape and does some serious voodoo chicken bone dance bull shit to it, and THEN it goes to every TV station in America.
In other words, for all practical purposes great bulk of the American marketing, advertising, and merchandising industry hangs like a crooked
velvet Elvis from a pair of legacy SCSI tape drives (age=[
10+years) that I can't get any god damn tech support for.