Confessions of a Nielsen viewer

For instance, my diary week coincided with the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.  Flippin’ sweet!  The Olympics!  An entire person’s existence bent towards on one goal only to see it disintegrate before a worldwide audience in a span of two and a half minutes: Now that’s entertainment.  And four hours of television on a Friday night, four hours normally otherwise devoted to a DVD or an evening of bad live music and nickel pitchers.  I heated a bowl of the Official Microwave Instant Mashed Potatoes of the XX Winter Olympiad and settled in at eight in the evening, as instructed by NBC promos that began running at approximately the same time the ancient Greeks were wrapping up the original version.  

What th — I had been promised marching athletes and stupid hats and incomprehensible Italian pageantry and instead here was this… this… filler?  The network was broadcasting training runs and athlete feel-good stories.  I swore into my potatoes:  Here it was 8:20, and the broadcast hadn’t even attained Bob Costas status yet.  The righteous anger crowded out the melted butter.  For this, ye shall suffer, NBC.

Although the actual ceremony broadcast didn’t start until 9 p.m., I watched for the entire hour, hypnotized by Bode Miller flailing past course markers and half-pipers blinking slowly into camera lights. 

But into the ratings booklet?  Telemundo.

Watching TV during sweeps months shifts our TV habits, changes the equation.  It’s a fraudulent way to gauge the nation’s attention span.  Things happen during sweeps that would never go down in, say, October:  A generation of babies comes into world in stuck elevators, weddings are cancelled at the altar, the two sitcom leads who have been aggressively flirting for five years finally Do It.  We lose ourselves.

‘Meet the Press’ or bull riding?
As the week wore on, chronicling what amused me, admitting a secret weakness for exercise equipment infomercials to total strangers, forced me to examine who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I was inviting into my bedroom at two in the morning. If my visual and audio input was constant trash, what did that say about my dark and twisted innards? 

WHAT I WROTE THAT I WATCHED:  Senate debate on CSPAN2
WHAT I ACTUALLY WATCHED:  “Crocodile Hunter”

WHAT I WROTE THAT I WATCHED:  “Meet the Press”
WHAT I ACTUALLY WATCHED:  Bull riding

WHAT I WROTE THAT I WATCHED:  “American Masters” 
WHAT I ACTUALLY WATCHED: Half an hour of two women demonstrating an electronic set of scrapbook stamps on a shop-at-home channel.  “No more hiding all those bags of ink pads from your husband!” one of the hostesses announced.

WHAT I WROTE THAT I WATCHED:  “Father Corapi and the Catechism of the Catholic Church”
WHAT I ACTUALLY WATCHED: “True Hollywood Stories:  Saved By the Bell”

This is, perhaps, why I am not allowed to visit with my baby nephew unattended.

Nielsen was very, very concerned for me and the welfare of my two diaries.  I received at least four phone calls with friendly reminders to fill in my diary and anxious questions about how the grid and I were getting along.  These check-ins, combined with the rampant falsifications, shoved me into places I never thought I’d go.

FRIENDLY NIELSEN PERSON:  Do you have any questions about your booklet?
ME:  Yes.  How do I get mashed potatoes out of the binding?
FRIENDLY NIELSEN PERSON:  Um.
ME:  You sound more suspicious than the last time you called.
FRIENDLY NIELSEN PERSON:  There’s… no way we can match your diary to you, Miss Ellis.  The booklets are anonymous.
ME:  BUT YOU KNOW, DON’T YOU?!  YOU KNOW I WATCH “BRIDEZILLAS!”

I shoved the diaries into their pre-postage-paid envelopes at the end of the week and applied the fifteen bucks to therapy.  “Crocodile Hunter” remains safely on the air.

I cannot wait for jury duty.

Mary Beth Ellis is a freelance writer and college professor in Florida.  She also maintains www.BlondeChampagne.com.

MORE FROM TELEVISION

Television Section Front

Forget swimming ... badminton, anyone?   Political commentator Maddow gets own show Fonz statue gets two thumbs up in Milwaukee Agency settles TV writers' age-bias lawsuit OMG! It’s The Cheetah Girls’ ‘World’ 'CSI' casts Fishburne as Petersen bows out Test Pattern: Add tug of war to the Olympics? Soap opera casting for injured Iraq war vet Heard but not seen: TV's best unseen characters Reality TV section Television Section Front   Add Television headlines to your news reader: