LOL. I just saw a CNN story on black and hispanic groups protesting against the new nielsen people meters, claiming it's racist. First off- when a cry of racism comes about, you have to be very cautious and skeptical, since racism against minorities is a rare thing in 2004 America. On the other hand, racism against whites- (Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson come to mind) is a common thing in the media, and this should be obvious since outrageous men like Sharpton can actually be taken seriously and take part in presidential primary debates! Secondly, how an electronic device that is sent out to homes to get ratings data could possibly be racist is just beyond me. The CNN story didn't make much sense, in that they didn't really ever explain why these groups claim the system is racist...tho, they did talk to Al Sharpton (he was in one of the protest lines- shocking that a phony like Sharpton would make sure he was on TV, getting his camera-time to cry racism once again- gasp!) seemed to be saying that the new devices are too complex for minorities to use- this claim wouldn't be too shocking, since many groups spend their entire budgets on demanding unfair affirmative action programs in schools and businesses- a system that basically tells black Americans that they're too stupid to compete on a level playing field with others, so they MUST be given extra points simply for being black.
I'm going to look into this further to see why these groups are claiming racism, and why Al Sharpton is claiming that this will cause the "whitenization" of TV (I'm fairly certain he made that word up, by the way.)
In the end- this shouldn't be a serious issues, since ratings data is nonsense as it is. You cannot have a few million nielsen households and make those numbers cover the hundred+ million TV viewers in the nation. Ratings are nowhere near a real picture of who watches what and how long and at what time...I remember when I was a kid, we got Nielsen stuff in the mail, and I used to fill out the diary they give you- thing is, they used to send small amounts of cash with the diaries, which means- you could fill anything out just to get it over with and to keep getting a few dollars here and there for doing nothing. So, not only do the small numbers not cover the entire viewing public, but many of the people that take part in it have to be just putting down nonsense, and there's no way to know who is being honest and who isn't- who is actually watching the shows and paying attention, or who has it on as background noise...who is actually in the room watching the show, and who is on the other room baking a cake.
UPDATE:More on this story- seems some people love to play the race card, even with silly issues like tv ratings.
http://www.everyonecounts.tv/press/0625_latimes.htm
http://www.everyonecounts.tv/press/0707_medialife.htm
Both pieces from Nielsen- but from other stories, and the raw data, it seems that this is all nonsense, and mainly a move by Fox and a few other networks because of sagging ratings with the new system in place that is more accurate.
UPDATE 2:
A great point I didn't even think of...Al Sharpton's comment about how this would lead to the "whitenizing" of TV is insane, of course, but- as this person points it, if a white person said that something would be bad because it would lead to the "blackenizing" of TV there would be an outcry across the nation from so-called civil rights leaders. This, of course, bolsters my case that racism in America in 2004 is a non-issue for minorities and more of an issue for whites. Race shouldn't be an important thing...we should all be Americans, we should all be people. I'm tired of the race card being played AT ALL, and it's about time Americans unite without regard to skin color.