TV Ratings: Measuring a Step-Forward

            Recently, it was announced that Nielsen, one the top ratings measuring systems, will begin adding mobile devices as an additional measuring device to determine ratings.  More and more everyday, television viewing is emerging in this intensifying era of digital media. No matter what an individual may state, television viewing is one of the most interactive technologies an individual uses for a daily source of entertainment, especially in America. Every month, week and day, television viewers are presented with advertisements and promotions for new and upcoming television shows, and as these new shows premier, this results for other shows to come to an end. Now, the question is posed, how are these shows being determined to be canceled or renewed? The answer appears to be through an audience measurement system known as TV ratings.
Nielsen Media Research, a marketing research group, which measures the popularity of American television programs through consumer viewing behavior and demographic information.

Through this development, ratings are not qualitative evaluations of how popular a program is, but instead, how many people watched, which determines the viewership of America’s TV ratings. Through this strategic use of viewership measurement, Television ratings seem to unravel a controversial method that has led to criticism in the entertainment media industry due to digital forms, viewership and demographics, which possibly proves inaccuracy with our audience measurement system, TV ratings.

Moreover, within the advancement of digital technology, television ratings have possibly showed much inaccuracy based on viewership through other digital forms. As stated before, television viewing is increasing more and more everyday, which conveys the point that there must certainly be a high quantity of viewers, but if ratings appear so low then where are these viewers watching TV? The answer is simple, on other digital forms. Research demonstrates digital forms such as online streaming, DVR’s (Digital video recorder), Smart-phones, IPAD’s and more mobile advanced technologies all affect TV ratings, which can prove a strong inaccuracy if viewership measurement are solely based on television systems (Stelter, 2012). Many viewers, whom possibly do not own a TV set, watch their favorite programming on online-streaming systems such as Hulu, YouTube and Netflix. Therefore, many individuals that are loyal fans to their favorite TV shows will not be counted in the sample pool of measurement because they are not watching their favorite programs on an actual Television set. According to journalist, Bill Carter, the growth in online-streaming is speeding up, making it harder than ever to assess the total popularity of a show (Carter, 2012).  
In conclusion, this brings up the point that I believe Nielsen has made a smart decision by now allowing mobile devices to be accounted for as a measuring tool for television ratings, which is definitely a step-forward in the measurement of television ratings.