Given the impact of Nielsen's ratings on television advertising rates, they are constantly criticized for bias, skewed samples and poor measurements of popularity. NBC Universal Research President Alan Wurztel recently said "we're in the primordial soup" regarding audience measurement. Now Networked Insights says that Nielsen isn't fully measuring the impact of social networks on television audiences.
In their "Measure the Social" Report released today, Networked Insights tracked the 85 percent of the online audience that comprises the "silent majority" — people that demonstrate their interest in television shows through actions on social media (versus the 15 percent that actively post content online). Networked then compared Nielsen's top ten shows for the week of September 22 to those most talked about on social networks.
While many of the shows overlapped, Networked ranked Nielsen's number one show (Grey's Anatomy) as the eighth most popular series, while their top series (Two and a Half Men) was Nielsen's fifth most popular show.
While advertisers could use the study's findings to shift their ad spend around shows that get good word of mouth online, their study seems depressingly skewed in its own way, considering that Two and a Half Men becomes the top rated show on television.
