[mythtv-users] Nielsen wants to know...

A. F. Cano afc at shibaya.lonestar.org
Sat Aug 22 19:48:40 UTC 2015


In light of the recent letter writing thread and how little (if any)
effect it might have, I'm prompted to ask...

Nielsen called me recently about a radio survey.  I told them I don't
do surveys and hung up but they're persistent.  They sent me a letter
with a $1 bill.  The next time, a very nice and very professional lady
convinced me to go through a supposedly short radio survey on the phone.
It turned out to be much longer and intrusive than portrayed at first,
even though she was really trying to move very quickly through the
questions.  In the end I agreed to go over the material they were going
to send me.

So now the material is here.  They seem to go out of their way to reassure
me that any questions I have will be answered etc, etc... but of course the
businesses that pay for these surveys are the real customers and their
interest is to get as much data as possible.  They claim the surveys are
anonymous, but they have my name, address and phone number to start with.
The 2 very detailed and long booklets have a bar code that is no doubt
linked to my already existing profile.

I've considered not sending the books back but this will no doubt result in
more calls to convince me otherwise.

I've considered sending the books back with the bar-code removed, but given
how all data is linked, I have little doubt that with the data they have,
the data in the books and all the access they likely have, they could figure
out where the book really came from and all information will be linked to me
anyway.  I was a little surprised some time back when I dealt with my car
insurance company (X) and after a few keystrokes I was told "you also have
company Y" (for another vehicle).  I had never told them that beforehand,
of course.

The only reason I even considered doing this is that I was going to let them
have it about the cable companies that I despise.  I only receive OTA TV.

So, does anyone have any outside, objective information on what these surveys
can gather beyond the obvious (supposedly anonymous) questions they ask?  As
the respondents are obviously a sample of the general population, would it
be beneficial (and would it make a difference?) to have an anti-cable company
view represented?

It might even be counter-productive to expose the multiple ways myth allows to
get rid of commercials and accelerate viewing.  Some years ago I responded to
a phone survey about npr/public radio and I let them how aggravated I felt
about the unending fund-raising.  I mentioned that luckily there was this other
npr station without the fund-raising...  Ever since, all the npr stations do the
fund-raising at the same time, so there's no way to escape it short of taking
a vacation from public radio for 10 days.

So, is this survey really inconsequential? They are most likely already well
aware of what DVRs can do and of how many people are ditching cable companies.
In fact one of them is already advertising to cord cutters.  Or is it likely
to have some beneficial effect?

Opinions?  Nielsen claims to value my opinions.  Let the list opinions fly...

Thanks for reading this far...

Augustine



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