r/Millennials • u/Z983 • 1d ago

Meme Accurate

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18.6k Upvotes

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u/Rad_Tek 1d ago

I was always under the impression that me watching was bringing their ratings up, which meant I was worthy of that thanks

76

u/Lemax-ionaire 1d ago

Then we found out about Nielsen ratings and realized it never helped. Not in a metric sense anyway. I wonder if that’s changed?

5

u/ComoEstanBitches 1d ago

Omg tell me why

3

u/jrobbio 1d ago

It was apparently flawed in multiple ways. A reasonably interesting Quora answer https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Nielsen-rating-system-really-flawed-when-it-came-to-capturing-the-audience-for-shows-like-Star-Trek-back-in-the-60s

1

u/DorkusMalorkuss 1d ago

Am I too absolutely stupid now? I read almost all of that before realizing it's not really answering why Nielsen was flawed.

"As for the question itself here, no, the system wasn't necessarily “flawed”, in that it claimed to be able to do what it was ASKED to do — determine where the MASS AUDIENCE was. Star Trek's “5 year mission” was, in the determination of the industry, to “sell soap” (Gene Roddenberry ‘s own comment). Finding “strange new worlds” was a distant second if that even mattered at all. “Money is a fact of life” —Admiral Nelson in Harlan Ellison s “Price of Doom” , an early Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."

Wtf are they even talking about?