I see, so when there is an underground system of pay-for-ratings (those that fill out the viewing booklets can Sell their choices for cash) this is considered a Free Market? Maybe a RIGGED Market but it certainly is not Free. And if the factors like race, age, and economic status are fudged to satisfy the PC crowd this would be considered a Free Market? And there is even rumors of a built in system to make sure the "right types" of programs get rated properly to make sure the proper message is sent to the masses.
Nah its not a Free Market, its a carefully controlled system and it is used to manipulate public opinion, time and time again. The thing that is different now is, there is real evidence showing Nielsen's system is wrong and rigged (TIVO DVR data) and there is a movement afoot to squash any challenges to the system.
Check out the campaign to scare people who use DVR/TIVO and their program choices are being monitored. In this scare campaign it is never revealed that there is no personal data attached to this monitoring system, just the basics like demographics and such. Same as Nielsen does.
You’re investing way more emotion into this than it deserves. We’re just talking about TV shows here, which ones stay and which ones get canceled isn’t actually a situation that effects the world.
Of course in some ways the TIVO and DVR data is meaningless. The job of the networks is to deliver eyeballs to commercials, people watching by DVR by and large skip commercials, therefore those viewers are not really contributing to the bottom lines, those eyeballs are not being delivered to commercials.
I have no idea what campaign your talking about, and frankly don’t care. Any such campaign was done by stupid people, and only paid attention to by even stupider people, stupid people scaring stupider people is a situation best left ignored by everybody else.
One way or the other though, it is still a free market, no matter how worked up you get about it. All the shows have to put up with the same flawed number gathering system, everybody involved is satisfied with the results of the numbers, and complaining about them is an exercise in pointless oxygen destruction.