Nielsen to monitor what college students watch on TV

Watching TV while relaxing after class or watching parts of the game with friends will now count toward the Nielsen national rating to target the popular programs among college students. \nNielsen is now directing its attention to college students living away from home, which will give programming directed at young adults a boost in the ratings. Nielsen is a rating company that identifies popular TV shows by analyzing the times TV sets are turned on in a particular household.\n“Once we get more people of the college age group being counted, we will see what they are watching,” said Anne Elliot, vice president of communications at Nielsen.\nBefore Jan. 29, usually the only time Nielsen could see what a large portion of the 18-to-24 age group watched on television was when they were at their parents’ houses, but now Nielsen will be able to follow them to school by asking permission from their parents, Elliot said.\n“We were concerned that we would not get permission to get into college dorms for security reasons, but a pilot study done with a number of our clients found that it was not a huge obstacle,” Elliot said.\nTo really look into what college students are watching, multiple students need to be monitored, Elliot said.\n“Our sample is constantly changing,” Elliot said. “Whenever we get a new family with a college student into the sample, we can see if we can follow the college student back to school to continue checking what programs he or she is watching.”\nTelevision ratings will show what programs the college student demographic is watching, Elliot said.\nShe said this is important because “the more there are targeted programs, the more important it is that we get that target audience to find out exactly what they are watching.”\nMany students said the change might lead the networks to develop more programming for their generation. Sophomore Heather Wampler supported the change, saying it might get rid of some of the “junk” currently on television.\nElliot said Nielsen is still unsure as to how the results will be carried out among advertisers and television companies.\n“It still remains to be seen how everything will be impacted,” Elliot said. \nIf the ratings find out that the 18- to 24-year-old demographic likes a certain type of show, then more types of this show might be created, she added.\nThe only problem with this plan is that a number of college students watch television programs on the Internet.\n“We don’t measure viewing on other platforms, such as YouTube, as of yet, but we’re working on it,” Elliot said.\nTargeting college students may also affect the way advertising is done.\n“If we find there are more 18-to-24-year-olds watching “South Park,” then advertisers may pay more for ads during that time to reach the young audience,” Elliot said.\nFreshman Robert Skoglund said even though he doesn’t watch much television besides sports and a few other shows, he felt the idea wouldn’t be bad. \n“Most college students are up until 2 in the morning, and if advertisers knew what shows students watch most, the advertisers would be able to reach that target audience,” he said.