Yes, I had a Nielsen Box on My TV. By Geniusofdespair

On March 26th I ran a puzzle post that Julio won. Where are you Julio? Yes, it was a Nielsen remote that I was pressing with my thumb for over a year. I promised I would tell more about what it was like to be a Nielsen TV rater. Here is my confession.

When they came to my house and made the offer, I have to say I was intrigued. I had this vision of leaving the TV on all day tuned into every worthwhile program I could think of, while avoiding Fox News like the plague. Well it wasn't to be. You actually had to watch the programs. When you started watching TV and about every 45 minutes thereafter, if you didn't press their button a bank of red lights would start flashing so you couldn't possibly watch TV. It started with just a little blink and soon moved on to a rapid fire rate. I tried to catch it really early because the rapid fire was pretty bad: You had to press to stop the distraction. If you weren't watching, the button wouldn't get pressed and Nielsen would not record what you were watching. So basically, I had to press a button every 45 minutes of TV watching. Geez, I actually had to watch the shows I wanted rated which meant that pie-in-the-sky quality TV watching never happened.

If I didn't press the button (sometimes I skipped out, during a commercial, to the computer and got delayed, leaving the red lights flashing for an hour or two) they would call me the next day to remind me to press the button.

The Nielsen people were very nice, it wasn't a bad experience, they went out of their way to make us happy. They tried to hide their equipment as much as possible, there were a couple of boxes and a shitload of wires. Every night about 3 a.m. the equipment would call Nielsen over my phone line and download the sound information. Apparently every channel has a unique sound and that is how they know what I am watching (I could be making this up, and you wouldn't know would you?).

The button pressing became second nature after awhile. I found myself reaching for the remote for weeks after the boxes were removed from all our TVs. I also still have pangs of guilt. Yes, every time I tuned into a shitty show I said to myself "Don't give this show ratings" but I watched it anyway. I had no willpower.

You know those two shows with the plots that have not made any sense for two years, Lost and Heroes? Yes, I helped their ratings. I don't know, it became a habit watching them and I couldn't stop. Now that I am gone, you can lop off about 20,000 people.

When I was young, I always thought "Who are all those stupid people with Nielsen boxes? Why are all these bad shows popular?" Well, now I know why. When I was sick I gave the home remodeling show, Flip this House and the Miami Tatoo Parlor show Miami Ink some mega-ratings. I am sorry America. Forgive me, in my defense: I never watched Fox News.

Now you know, I don't just blog. So all of you who tell me, "Get a life" I have an oddball one going here thank you very much.