An Inside Look at a Nielsen Family

The careers and livelihoods of thousands in the television industry are in the hands of my 62-year-old mother.

Mary Smith (not her real name) is part of a Nielsen family, and when she zaps her remote control, her viewing choices (and those in 4,000 other American households) are used by networks and advertisers to gauge what programs the entire country watches.

“I always watch ‘Masterpiece Theater’,” said Smith, a hospital administrator with six grandchildren. “And ‘Cheers,’ and I like to watch ‘Love Connection’ sometimes, and, of course, ‘Golden Girls’ and ‘Cosby’.”

As one of the Americans who constitute Nielsen Media Research’s “representative sample” of the 92 million U.S. households with television, Smith and her viewing habits are monitored every hour of every day. The programs she and my stepfather watch are automatically recorded on the Nielsen People Meter, a simple electronic box attached to their set.

Smith works full-time and watches television mostly in the evenings. She says her viewing habits have changed little since hers became a Nielsen family.

“When I first got the Nielsen box I might have thought a little about what I was watching in terms of if I wanted this show to get good ratings,” she said. “But after a day or two you just watch what you feel like watching.”

One habit that she has changed causes her to turn the TV set off if there is nothing on that she wants to watch.

“Before, I’d leave it on and just read my mail or make phone calls until my show came on,” she said. “But because I’m a Nielsen family, I want them to record that I am not watching, so I just turn it off.”

“Also, if I don’t think a show would be healthy for kids, I don’t think it should be on TV and I won’t watch it,” she said. “The reason I agreed to become a Nielsen family in the first place was that, feeling the way I did, I thought this was the only way to make a statement.”

“I won’t watch shows that portray women in a silly light,” she added. “And I won’t watch shows that are degrading toward women either.”

One program she singled out was “Nurses” on NBC.

“From the first episode I knew ‘Nurses’ was the worst,” she said. “I watched it about three times, not so much because I was hoping it would get better but because I knew it was so bad I wanted to pick out all the things they consistently did badly.”

“The nurse is always shown polishing her nails, or joking about the bedpan,” she said, “never as part of the team with the doctor, and the sad thing is that any nurse you ever talk to can tell you wonderful stories.”

“I’d love to see a nurses show like ‘L.A. Law’,” Smith said. “Of that quality where they are like real characters with lives and they’re also professionals with careers and standards and accountability; that’s bound to be more interesting than that silly stuff they make up.”

Smith had plenty of good things to say about television--particularly the writing on her favorite comedies. She even keeps some nights free so she can watch her favorites, she said.

“I’m a real fan of some Monday night shows,” she added, “so I don’t play bridge on Mondays anymore, but instead watch ‘Major Dad,’ ‘Murphy Brown,’ and ‘Northern Exposure,’ and I like anything by Agatha Christie if it’s done by the British.”

Other programs Smith views regularly are “Murder, She Wrote,” “Seinfeld,” “Roseanne,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy” and “Coach.”

Smith praised Nielsen Media Research, whose staff, she said, went out of their way to make sure she wanted to be a Nielsen family, warning her that it may be a little inconvenient.

“One thing I thought was funny about the Nielsens was that they asked what my nationality was and I said I was Hispanic,” said Smith, “So the instructions on the box are in Spanish and they have a Spanish-speaking person call you, and everything they send you is in Spanish.”

Although Smith said she had no trouble reading the literature in Spanish sent by the Nielsen’s, she knows many Hispanics who speak little or no Spanish.

“It’s funny that they assume because you are Hispanic you only speak Spanish,” Smith said. “Spanish was my parents’ first language, but I learned English first. Not all Hispanics speak the same amount of Spanish.”