Word: nielsens
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...crucial nature of their decisions, the sidewalk critics ought to be paid at least as much as the creative geniuses of the network programming departments. Actually, they do their work for free. Their only satisfaction comes from knowing that they, with the programming professionals and the 1,200 Nielsen families whose TV sets are monitored by the ratings service (see following story), share responsibility for the uniformly poor quality of network TV series...
...dragon of televisionland is the Nielsen ratings service, and this spring its foes gleefully thought that they had found a white knight to slay it. Their champion was Richard ("Rex") Sparger, an ex-reporter and former Oklahoma state legislator, who boasted publicly that he "could make a hit of a show that was a failure." He also claimed that he had kited the ratings of four programs, notably last February's CBS special An Evening with Carol Charining...
...method was to sleuth out-in a way still not fully known-the names of 58 of the super-secret Nielsen sample of 1,200 households. He mailed them questionnaires before the Channing special, asked questions about the commercials on the show, enclosed $3 with each questionnaire and promised to send the viewers another $5 each after they mailed in the completed form...
...Nielsen Co., which repeatedly warns its sample audience against such tampering attempts, uncovered and thwarted Sparger's scheme well before the air date of the Channing show. Nielsen sued Sparger for $1,500,000 for "impairment of confidence in the accuracy of the measurement service and the security of the sample." The suit also charged that 1) Sparger used privileged information gathered as a onetime congressional investigator of the ratings industry, and 2) he "concluded that it would be possible to obtain substantial sums of money [for rigging shows] on behalf of interested parties." The company immediately deployed private...
...Nielsen drove up in a Chevrolet van that contained telephone, air conditioning, fluorescent lights, desk, couch, wall-to-wall carpeting and drawers of files, facts and insurance tables. He went to work with statistical tables and a desk calculator, and had soon figured out-and sold-a $9,000 policy...