• Ephrononmedia.com, Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:17 AM

Research makes for bad conversation, notes Erwin Ephron. It's too fussy for casual talk and can leave the wrong impression. Since the people meter was introduced in 1987, TV ratings have been based on viewing during the average minute of a program.

But advertisers also want to know how many people watch their messages. This has led Nielsen to propose commercial minute ratings, and that has led to lots of industry discussion. Bottom line: Nielsen can't tell us how many people see commercials. It can only track whether people change channels or turn the set off or leave the room. So, if the ratings company can't measure how many people see commercials, what can they gauge?

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