Never known anyone who had an actual box. However, like a few others mentioned, I had the diary for a week or two (or maybe a month) about 7 years ago. You just write down everything you watch during the time slots. There was a lot of Beverly Hills 90210 re-runs in mine.
There were a few, Jamie Luner, Marcia Cross and Laura Leighton. Luner and Leighton were the hotter ones. One of my friends was banging around with Jamie Luner for a while. We were all completely stunned by it b/c he is such a shithead, MAJOR party girl but super hot and actually really cool.
A couple of friends of mine had a Nielsen box about 10 years ago. They only had it for a couple of months. It came with a remote that helped you indicate who was in the room watching the show. So if they were both watching the show, they each had a button on the remote to push and when they were done, they pushed it again. Fairly simple. I was fascinated by it as I too had never ever known anyone that had a Nielsen box. I asked them if they realized how much power they had. They didn't seem to appreciate it as much as I did.
Nielsen Television Ratings are gathered by one of two ways; by extensive use of surveys, where viewers of various demographics are asked to keep a written record (called a diary) of the television programming they watch throughout the day and evening, or by the use of Set Meters, which are small devices connected to every television in selected homes. These devices gather the viewing habits of the home and transmit the information nightly to Nielsen through a "Home Unit" connected to a phone line. Set Meter information allows market researchers to study television viewing habits on a minute to minute basis, seeing the exact moment viewers change channels or turn off their TV. In addition to this technology, the implementation of individual viewer reporting devices (called People meters) allow the company to separate household viewing information into various demographic groups. In 2005, Nielsen began measuring the usage of digital video recordings (TiVo, for example) and initial results indicate that time-shifted viewing will have a significant impact on television ratings. The networks are not yet figuring these new results into their ad rates at the resistance of advertisers.
Yeah, they must be pretty rare. Like I said, these two girls didn't appreciate the power they held. I told them that literally billions of dollars a year were spent on their viewing choices. They said it became a hassle because every hour their remote would flash and beep at them to re-verify that they were still in the room watching the show. Judging from the two of them, the Nielsen ratings data isn't exact but it's a pretty close approximation of what's going on in those homes.
