Confessions of a Nielsen viewer

The American Dream doesn’t consist of a three-bedroom house, two cars in the garage, and a pitcher of lemonade on the front porch swing.

The American Dream is the ability to tell Michael Eisner where to stick it.

And Jeff Zucker.  And Les Moonves.  And every other network head who dumps “Freaks and Geeks” in favor of the magnificent “Bob Patterson.”  Who wouldn’t want the power of forever removing “The Bachelor” from our lives?  Of protesting the earthly existence of Donald Trump? 

We have but one recourse:  Nielsen Media Research.  TV shows cling to life, become renewed, and die by their Nielsen ratings.  To produce them, Nielsen tracks the viewing habits of a cross-section of America:  yuppies, low-income families, grandfathers, and single moms. And, apparently, cappuccino-addicted freelance writers with a tendency to get lost in large to medium bathroom stalls.

Nielsen randomly selected me as a ratings diarist for February sweeps.  I was asked to physically track each show I watched for more than five minutes a day.  After 29 years of sitting through blown-dry weathercasters bearing personal responsibility for sunshine, Kelly Ripa, and the preemption of “Punky Brewster” for the NBA, I was at last in control. One moment, I was throwing objects at Dr. Phil in vain.  The next, I was representing the television routines of 137 households.  I tapped my fingertips together, smirking; eeeeexxxcelent.  The evil ones who had stopped the hearts of “Arrested Development” and “Mystery Science Theater 3000” would now bow low before me.

No automatic, wired-in zaps of revenge; I would have to work to express my furor over the fact that anything involving Paris Hilton is broadcast to the cosmos. Nielsen sent me two paper booklets, one for each television in my apartment. Also, because I am, apparently, a dirty, dirty whore, somebody shoved $15 in cash into the envelope.  Sweet!  That’s almost two whole milliliters of gasoline!

I swore that I would conquer the network execs with honor.  I would be a scrupulous diarist, forthright and true, faithfully documenting each channel change in 15-minute increments.  It was my duty.

And then the lying began
This would have gone much better had I not developed a habit of interacting with other human beings.  For I was not only asked to note what I watched, but what my guests tuned into as well.  Suddenly the diary booklets were tyrannical grids of vox populi.

Two friends spent the night and I awoke to find them cheerfully eating doughnuts and casting the votes of 137 households for “Top 20 Video Countdown.”  I sent them back to their city of origin, furiously paging through the “TV Guide” to find something, anything, that could intellectually offset Ashlee Simpson.  I wound up with an hour of “Hogan Knows Best.”

Then there was The Boyfriend Who Watched NASCAR.  He was heading home after a date when I noticed he had made a journal entry while I finished my makeup.

“’Pinks’?”  I screeched at him.  “’Pinks’?  What kind of filthy disgusting—”

“It’s about drag racing,” he explained.

“Even worse!  Why don’t you just write the WWE in there!”

“I did, yesterday.”

And then?  The lying began.

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