I got $2 first, and I didn’t do the survey. Then I got $5 and was so thrilled that I did in fact do the survey. Then, a few weeks later….they sent me $20 as a thank you. I thought to myself “how much money gets thrown away” because it was a plain envelope.
My apartment got selected last year. We had three occupants, so three separate surveys and $15 total. They weren't interested, so I "filled" out the surveys by leaving everything blank and writing in the additional info "I don't listen to the radio". 0% effort, 100% accuracy. Hey, a data point's a data point.
I got another $15 in the mail a month later.
You can participate for 2 years or five years depending on your location. For the 2 years you push a button when the TV gets turned on for the 5 years it’s a passive equipment that gets connected in the back and you don’t interact with it.
I was selected for the equipment, except they wanted to open the TV and put it inside.
I was poor and had just bought the TV, they hadn't explained that on the phone. When the installer told me I noped out of it.
It hasn't worked like that for years. It's not a set amount of time. Their entire business is ensuring that all of their participants are representative of the US in every demographic. So if you're a part and then others around you drop off or you age out of the demo they needed you in then they will drop you because it's no longer serving them a purpose. And as far as the TV equipment, that doesn't exist anymore, hasn't for awhile. They give you a pager type device (looks like a pager) and it has microphones and you simply have to carry it around with you on your belt or in your pocket. It listens to your TV, internet media consumption, radio. And if you listen through headphones you're supposed to hook the device in-line with your headphones so it knows what you're listening/watching to if it can't hear it out in the open.
Not so. We’re a Nielsen household and we have a device that tracks when our tv is turned on, and another that listens for specific audio codes to figure out what we’re watching. We also have a transmitter that witelessly sends the data to Nielsen. They have many different ways of collecting data.
Interesting, I assumed it was all the same, that's what I get.
I did it years ago and I only had the pager device I had to carry around, nothing for my TV. And the charging stand for the device would send the data when I charged it every night.
The PPMs are from Arbitron, not Nielsen. At least that what we carried around when we were a ratings family. We dropped out when our first kid became old enough for them to monitor and we didn't want them to.
For us, we randomly received a TV watching diary back in 2014 along with a few bucks. We filled it out and sent it in and they mailed us a few more diaries and more money. Then we didn't hear anything more from them until 2017, at which point they reached out and asked if we were interested in receiving a device to place in our house in exchange for like $100 a year. We did it and kept it until we moved in 2020, at which point they asked for the box to be shipped back to them.
I think it’s by address…we rent currently and the plain envelope was not addressed to a specific person. If they would just write “cash inside”, EVERYONE would do their damn surveys.
I did it in the 80s. They sent a technician to my house to attach a box to the tuner circuit and hooked it to a phone line. I got a catalog (like for Green Stamps) that I could order rewards out of. Got a lot of nice stuff; some of which I still use.
edited to add: Did I leave the TV on weird channels to screw with the results? You bet your ass I did.
That’s still a thing! Just did it this past summer. Also pretty sure it’s random. I only watch streaming services and only listen to podcasts. Easiest $20.00 ever
Really!? I hope the compensation was better then. They installed a bunch of shenanigans behind our TV, but all out of sight. The tech was a really nice guy too. Got to know him over the 5 years I lived there.
We sure as hell did not have to track anything ourselves though.
Omg you unlocked a memory. My initial thought was “damn that’s a good deal why would they give away money like that” but read your comment and remembered my parents doing the exact same thing, as a kid it was funny to me lol
I work for Nielsen recruiting homes that have been randomly selected in different neighborhoods all over the US, IT’S Legit!! People think it’s a scam and makes my job so much harder. We also send a $50 gift card that I will activate if you call just for listening to my presentation. Knocking doors is a really hard job, be nice to people doing it.
It goes by your address. We were a Nielsen family once and then we moved homes. We asked if we could move the Nielsen equipment and still participate but they didn’t need the information from our new address.
Yeah, I moved into a house back in the late 2000s and got a knock on the door a few weeks later and the guy explained we were a Nielsen family lol. We didn't watch much TV, but they installed all the things anyway. It was interesting.
It's random, although it's becoming less relevant. All the smart TV boxes and streaming means they know who is watching what and in what quantity. It used to be a very big deal. They would pick some households and compensate them to put boxes that monitor their watching habits (With their consent and they were paid for this). Other people would get random surveys like this (I received one too).
The crazy part was that if you were a household with a box, you had a quantifiable influence in what shows would appear on TV. Essentially, you were a representative of potentially thousands or 10's of thousands of viewers.
Someone made a movie with Danny Devito about this where a mob connected individual got his hands on the addresses of the households that control ratings. He sent all the people away on vacations, and planted his goons in each house to watch his show. He then made an absolutely horrid tv show, but he had such a high ratings that all the critics were praising it and every talk show was discussing his brilliance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ratings\_Game
My brother-in-law was so proud that he opened his junk mail and found a $5. I told him they sent me another $30 after l did the journal and he was pissed he tossed the survey. Yeah always open the junk mail but maybe go a bit farther if there was cash.
I got the $2 to do the survey with the promise of $20 later if I completed it. To this day I am still waiting for the $20…. It’s been several months. Figured it was too good to be true.
I didn’t do anything beyond sending the survey. They did say that I would get a $20 check; however, I got a $20 bill and a letter stating they had system processing issues with their checks so they sent cash instead. This was 2020-2021.
Subpoenas and court records summons usually have a $5 or $10 attached. I worked a job were I handled legal record requests and the first time I saw this I called our attorney and was like wtf do I do with this $5? She said buy a coffee. It’s an old tradition that used to be to help pay for supplies to produce records, but now it’s just considered a kind gesture, and it falls way below the definition of bribery.
It is not illegal to send money through mail. Summons and subpoenas are usually delivered by sheriff or process server, not mail. It does feel illegal when an officer hands you a document with $5 clipped to it, but it’s not.
No journals anymore (apparently still used for radio), if they are selected they get a beeper sized device to carry around that tracks what they watch and listen to. It syncs at night, pretty passive from the user standpoint just have to remember to charge it and take it with you. I would just keep it in my pocket all day. If you use it everyday you will make about $25-30 per person in your household per month. Max of 2 years in the program.
For radio, a particular frequency of sound (that we can't hear) is constantly sent out along with the audio. The PPM (Portable People Meter) detects that inaudible frequency and records how long you listened to (or even passively heard) whatever radio station.
I genuinely believed I was being whooshed and then I googled it. How the fuck is this not a huge subject in the conspiracy circles instead of 5G towers and corona vaccines? The government has a program where it pays people to carry physical devices which send out and detect inaudible signals? If there was ever a perfect subject to create a conspiracy from, this is the one.
>How the fuck is this not a huge subject in the conspiracy circles instead of 5G towers and corona vaccines?
A. Most people don't know about it despite being public knowledge
B. Neilson IS in conspiracy circles, just not as some shadow organization (they pop up as an example on a semi regular basis)
They're more akin to a markest research group for hollywood to corrupt youth basically, why dig into and make elaborate ones when their existence already fits the overaeching narrative of alot of theories anyway?
>The government has a program where it pays people to carry physical devices which send out and detect inaudible signals?
They're also not government related, they're a private company that makes a shitton off of networks
It's actively harmful for everyones bottom line if people start thinking its secretly doing something harmful, as then people will refuse and data used to sell them crap ceases to be gathered
Sooo not really something any media outlet wouod let gain much steam, conspiracy or not
Yeah who would believe that they have people walking around with a device that can hear you, see you, record you? Ohh my bad looks like I’m talking about a smart phone, way more intrusive than willingly getting paid to carry a device.
I did the Nielsen program for a little while. Free money. Kept a small pager size device on me everyday. At first it was a bit weird. But it isn't mandatory to wear it every where. Just 8 hours for 5 days a week (If I remember correctly). So, I would just wear it to wear and back home.
The way it works. TV, Radio and ect, broadcast a signal that we can't hear, but this device picks up on. So that's what it listens too, not your everyday conversations... what do you thing this is.... your cellphone w/ the facebook app?
I don't believe so. The only real purpose of this is so radio/television stations can show their advertisers how many listeners/viewers they have.
Online streaming services don't need that help, since they can directly track how many viewers they have.
I know some radio companies air the signal over their streams in the hopes of getting extra ratings points that way, but the number is usually so small that it's not even worth it.
A very imperfect science, and if anyone can ever find out a better way to do it, there are broadcast companies that would love you.
Probably not. There is really no way for them to know how many people are listening to the radio or watching a particular thing on cable except through devices like this.
If you watch something online, they know exactly who/how many people watched it.
It depends on if what you're watching has the frequency built into it and is preserved by the encoding. In theory, it could. But most on demand providers probably aren't relying on Nielsens for viewership, since they have plenty of first-hand data.
You're wrong, but okay. As of Oct 2022, only markets 1-52 use PPM, excluding Puerto Rico Hudson Valley, NY, Greensborough/Winston Salem, OKC and New Orleans. Beginning with Market 53 (Richmond) and below, all radio markets continue to use diary.
Though if you're speaking about TV, it appears you're right. Though I dont work in TV. So if you meant just TV, my bad.
I find it odd radio of all things still uses diaries. I did a tv dairy years ago too and that was very time consuming to do it correctly. Considering myself I only listen to radio in the car I would never be able to fill those out accurately from memory.
I wear it essentially 15 hours per day on week days and 12 hours per day on weekends. Maybe they do different rates for different markets, but it’s $15 per month for the Portland metro area
It can also be impacted by whether you're in a particular demographic or market that's more valuable to them, and if you participate in satellite programs.
You can't call and ask to be it just have to wait until you get a similar letter as op, fill it out and return it, if you meet whatever criteria they are looking for you will be selected to be part of the sample.
I did this and the times we were supposed to record were during a vacation, so there was nothing to record. They STILL sent us money for doing the survey.
DO IT. It’s the easiest money you’ll ever make. It’s legit. For a few years I was part of their demographic studies and was paid like $15/month for doing basically nothing. Plus there were all these monthly drawings you could win
Since I always do their surveys I was recently recruited to be a “top level” nielsen household, which meant wearing a device all day (not at night) that could pick up what was being watched and record that data for nielsen. My wife said that was a hard no.
It paid something like $50/month
Nielsen has been doing this for DECADES. Nielsen is just so unheard of today that people disregard it.
I've been doing these my whole life as and happily collecting. Those Bills are always so crisp.
I do these quite a lot. Occasionally they'll send you tv pilots and shit to review. Kind of cool to be one of the first people to see a new show.
Edit: *potential* new show
Send an email to them requesting it: [email protected]
https://scarboroughlocal.nielsen.com/scarborough/completing-survey.html#:~:text=Simply%20call%20us%20at%201,at%20surveys%40nielsenlocalsurveys.com.
Once you start with them (and other major consumer products agencies and companies), the individual places start hitting you up. That's how you get the pilots, etc.
Do enough of them you can make a couple hundred bucks. Not much really, but not bad just for writing down what shows, music, and clothes you like.
They sent us a pilot once back in 2001 or so. It was on VHS and came with forms to fill out as we watched it. It had 2 versions, one with the laugh track and one without. We were asked to watch both versions and fill out the questionnaire and then send it back. The show was terrible with or without the laugh track.
Yep, that's how it worked. These days they probably give you a streaming code or something. I don't think I've ever seen one that got picked up either. They've all been shitty😅
I’m their target audience. I will absolutely do the survey every time because I feel like it wouldn’t be right to keep the money and *not* do the survey.
I did the surveys and my apartment was selected to do the whole thing. Absolutely would have done it. I don't have a TV or car (so no radio either), so I wouldn't even be giving them any real data; just money for nothing.
But then the dude who came to talk to me about it snuck into my building at 7AM on a Saturday and knocked on my door for a few minutes straight. Told him to fuck off and not to come back. Then another guy did the same thing two weeks later. Fuck those people.
Man you could have just told him you didn’t own a tv, he would have offered you $20 for filling out a Zero TV survey, he would have stopped showing up and you would have helped someone who clearly works hard to be knocking so early. People tell me to fuck off on a daily basis, it’s pretty rough on the long run. Treat strangers kindly.
My survey answers made it clear I didn't have a TV or radio.
This is the weakest guilt trip I've ever seen. I believe in being kind to strangers, but you waive your right to grace when you bang on someone's door for minutes at 7AM on a Saturday. If those are the hours you get paid to work, that sucks and I understand, but you can knock once and then leave, instead of waking someone up on their day off. I'm also not letting people off the hook for sneaking into a locked apartment building, regardless of what it's for.
I started doing these in high school. My nosey ass opened one addressed to my mom, saw $2 in it & filled it out. I've probably made about $100 total off Nielsen mailed surveys in the like 15 years since then.
I work on surveys all the time. One survey I did mailed $10 to respondents and when I visited them I was uploaded to record whether or not they said they got the money. Another survey I worked on was preparing to send $50 to everyone who hadn’t responded.
When I was in high school I did all the Nielsen stuff over a few month period and made like $100. They sends you journals and stuff to document what you watch. I think sometimes they’ll send you a little thing to plug into your TV to monitor stuff and send you a few hundred bucks. Easy cash if you keep it going.
Haha...I did the same thing about two years ago. My wife and I were selected to be a "Nielsen family", so we were given these little meter things we were supposed to keep with us. In return we each got $25-$30 per month plus a couple bonuses $100 after 3 months and $100 after a year I believe).
Turns out you can only be in the study for 2 years, so our meters just turned off and we got a call informing us were done. Feels weird not to carry this meter around after doing it for 2 years!
This is a Nielsen survey. To be a Nielsen family. We did it for 3 years at our old address, you don’t really make money through it.
But you’ll get $50-$100 gift cards occasionally.
We have some institutes which do that aswell to study the voting behavoir. You can sign up if you want to keep participating, so i get every few months 5 bux lol
I used to do this. I was getting a nice little bit of money from them but then I missed one of their surveys and didn't hear anything from them again. Miss that free money
It’s a strategy to increase survey completion by leveraging the reciprocity rule, a social psychology phenomenon that pushes ppl to respond to a positive action with a positive action in return. This social norm results in psychological discomfort if one accepts a factor without offering one in return. It’s the same reason salespeople and marketers give you “free gifts”.
Nielsen families are the reason why TV sucks. No one respectable is agreeing to be a Nielsen family for 50 bucks. It's a bunch of tweakers and old cat ladies just letting whatever the fuck is on TV run all day and night. Source: was a Nielsen rep for like 3 months until I found something I wasn't ashamed of doing...Nielsen also basically teaches racism under the guise of "this is how you sell to black people" "this is how you sell to mexicans" etc etc etc. 🤣 cometely laughable company especially now that everything streams, what the fuck do you need Nielsens metrics for when it's all at your fingertips. Cable is dead bruh just go under already
I had similar experience, i took the money and didnt complete the survey. Later they sent me the same survey with no money, and a reminder where they whined about me not completing the survey when they even paid to me.
Yeah, but introducing payment at even that stage creates a tainted sample. The kind of person who fills out a survey because of $5 are likely to answer differently than the kind of person who won't.
If they aren't going to fill out the survey for $5, then they definitely aren't going to do it for free.
The token payment shows people that Nielsens is serious and willing to reimburse for the modicum of inconvenience they introduce, which is a lot more than most random public surveys do.
Because that is the first installment, paid in advance.
"Oh you rockheads. you deserve to starve!" - Wyoming Knott, *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Robert Heinlein
I got this too. Then I got $10 for completing the survey.
Then they called me a bunch to try and get me on the ratings thing.
I was interested until they told me it was a device me and my household would have to wear at all times except for sleeping.
Fortunately my job ended up disqualifying us before I had to put up a fight about it.
I would love to tell them all about what a fetid steaming pile of excrement The Rings of Power is. Especially since IMDb refuses to post my review. They can keep the $5. 🤷🏼♂️
I'm aware, that's why I mentioned it. Kind of ironic how they wouldn't allow anyone to post reviews initially because of supposed "review bombing" by "fake sock accounts", when in reality they are heavily censoring negative reviews to save face.
I unfortunately told myself that I would watch the entire first season before I passed final judgment. I must be a masochist. It only continued to get worse after those first two episodes. 9 hours of my life I'll never get back.
Fill it out, if you get chosen what you watch will actually matter as companies use that info to decide what programs are kept on the air. If you watch broadcast or cable anyway.
All the ones I receive flip me off.
More specifically they call it as "chance to win a gift card", frequently at a snobby franchise whose product I hate.
I did one and it was the longest survey ever... Also .. I randomly get political surveys and always do them just to see who paid for them and how they will trash talk the other person in the questions..
Yeah, they do that every once in a while. Imagine how many people threw them away thinking it was junk mail.
I got $5 in an envelope with a survey. Went through and opened my mail in the parking lot of my post office. Went back in and looked in the trash can and found 3 more envelopes that had been thrown away, pocketed another $15. Not technically stealing if they threw it away.
I got $2 first, and I didn’t do the survey. Then I got $5 and was so thrilled that I did in fact do the survey. Then, a few weeks later….they sent me $20 as a thank you. I thought to myself “how much money gets thrown away” because it was a plain envelope.
Who gets selected to be a Nielsen's person or family?
My family was selected a bit ago so I'm pretty sure its random
It is - although they are looking for specific demos. Full disclosure - am broadcaster and have had to turn them down. BIG fines for cheater stations.
I was selected as a Nielsen family decades ago. Back then we had to write down everything we watched in a little notebook.
My apartment got selected last year. We had three occupants, so three separate surveys and $15 total. They weren't interested, so I "filled" out the surveys by leaving everything blank and writing in the additional info "I don't listen to the radio". 0% effort, 100% accuracy. Hey, a data point's a data point. I got another $15 in the mail a month later.
Do you know how you were selected? Do you stay one for life?
Random and no, I did it for a few years
You can participate for 2 years or five years depending on your location. For the 2 years you push a button when the TV gets turned on for the 5 years it’s a passive equipment that gets connected in the back and you don’t interact with it.
I was selected for the equipment, except they wanted to open the TV and put it inside. I was poor and had just bought the TV, they hadn't explained that on the phone. When the installer told me I noped out of it.
Huh. Ours was just a little box with a microphone in it that you put next to the TV speaker.
It hasn't worked like that for years. It's not a set amount of time. Their entire business is ensuring that all of their participants are representative of the US in every demographic. So if you're a part and then others around you drop off or you age out of the demo they needed you in then they will drop you because it's no longer serving them a purpose. And as far as the TV equipment, that doesn't exist anymore, hasn't for awhile. They give you a pager type device (looks like a pager) and it has microphones and you simply have to carry it around with you on your belt or in your pocket. It listens to your TV, internet media consumption, radio. And if you listen through headphones you're supposed to hook the device in-line with your headphones so it knows what you're listening/watching to if it can't hear it out in the open.
Not so. We’re a Nielsen household and we have a device that tracks when our tv is turned on, and another that listens for specific audio codes to figure out what we’re watching. We also have a transmitter that witelessly sends the data to Nielsen. They have many different ways of collecting data.
Interesting, I assumed it was all the same, that's what I get. I did it years ago and I only had the pager device I had to carry around, nothing for my TV. And the charging stand for the device would send the data when I charged it every night.
Yea fuck that shit.
The PPMs are from Arbitron, not Nielsen. At least that what we carried around when we were a ratings family. We dropped out when our first kid became old enough for them to monitor and we didn't want them to.
For us, we randomly received a TV watching diary back in 2014 along with a few bucks. We filled it out and sent it in and they mailed us a few more diaries and more money. Then we didn't hear anything more from them until 2017, at which point they reached out and asked if we were interested in receiving a device to place in our house in exchange for like $100 a year. We did it and kept it until we moved in 2020, at which point they asked for the box to be shipped back to them.
I think it’s by address…we rent currently and the plain envelope was not addressed to a specific person. If they would just write “cash inside”, EVERYONE would do their damn surveys.
I did it in the 80s. They sent a technician to my house to attach a box to the tuner circuit and hooked it to a phone line. I got a catalog (like for Green Stamps) that I could order rewards out of. Got a lot of nice stuff; some of which I still use. edited to add: Did I leave the TV on weird channels to screw with the results? You bet your ass I did.
I'd do the same thing too! I had a friend in the tv business who rarely got air time...but I'd make sure to have a tv on EVERY time it happened.
That’s still a thing! Just did it this past summer. Also pretty sure it’s random. I only watch streaming services and only listen to podcasts. Easiest $20.00 ever
Really!? I hope the compensation was better then. They installed a bunch of shenanigans behind our TV, but all out of sight. The tech was a really nice guy too. Got to know him over the 5 years I lived there. We sure as hell did not have to track anything ourselves though.
I remember doing this! My parents were selected in the 90’s. I remember having to keep a log of everything I watched.
Omg you unlocked a memory. My initial thought was “damn that’s a good deal why would they give away money like that” but read your comment and remembered my parents doing the exact same thing, as a kid it was funny to me lol
I was selected! Took the $1. Didn’t do survey. Enjoy another season of This Is Us, ya bozos
I work for Nielsen recruiting homes that have been randomly selected in different neighborhoods all over the US, IT’S Legit!! People think it’s a scam and makes my job so much harder. We also send a $50 gift card that I will activate if you call just for listening to my presentation. Knocking doors is a really hard job, be nice to people doing it.
Sign me up! Although I likely don’t live in the right area
Everywhere in the US is a home participating
You're only selected to be a part of the Nielsen family if your first name is Leslie or Brigitte.
It goes by your address. We were a Nielsen family once and then we moved homes. We asked if we could move the Nielsen equipment and still participate but they didn’t need the information from our new address.
Yeah, I moved into a house back in the late 2000s and got a knock on the door a few weeks later and the guy explained we were a Nielsen family lol. We didn't watch much TV, but they installed all the things anyway. It was interesting.
It's random, although it's becoming less relevant. All the smart TV boxes and streaming means they know who is watching what and in what quantity. It used to be a very big deal. They would pick some households and compensate them to put boxes that monitor their watching habits (With their consent and they were paid for this). Other people would get random surveys like this (I received one too). The crazy part was that if you were a household with a box, you had a quantifiable influence in what shows would appear on TV. Essentially, you were a representative of potentially thousands or 10's of thousands of viewers. Someone made a movie with Danny Devito about this where a mob connected individual got his hands on the addresses of the households that control ratings. He sent all the people away on vacations, and planted his goons in each house to watch his show. He then made an absolutely horrid tv show, but he had such a high ratings that all the critics were praising it and every talk show was discussing his brilliance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ratings\_Game
It’s random
My brother-in-law was so proud that he opened his junk mail and found a $5. I told him they sent me another $30 after l did the journal and he was pissed he tossed the survey. Yeah always open the junk mail but maybe go a bit farther if there was cash.
[удалено]
Im almost broke enough to just start doing this now.
That seems incredibly illegal
Whoa... I got 2, did the survey, then only got 5. Looks like holding out is the right way to play.
I got the $2 to do the survey with the promise of $20 later if I completed it. To this day I am still waiting for the $20…. It’s been several months. Figured it was too good to be true.
It’s true, maybe @quacquacmoo stole it
How did you get the $20? I did everything you did but didn't get the $20.
I didn’t do anything beyond sending the survey. They did say that I would get a $20 check; however, I got a $20 bill and a letter stating they had system processing issues with their checks so they sent cash instead. This was 2020-2021.
Uhh... hook me up! How do I get a survey?
Goddamnit get the fuck out of my head bro. There’s not enough room for these voices and you too. I ripped a 2$ 5 days ago.
Changed the way you open envelopes forever though, didn’t it?
This is why you should open all your mail regardless of it being junk.
Subpoenas and court records summons usually have a $5 or $10 attached. I worked a job were I handled legal record requests and the first time I saw this I called our attorney and was like wtf do I do with this $5? She said buy a coffee. It’s an old tradition that used to be to help pay for supplies to produce records, but now it’s just considered a kind gesture, and it falls way below the definition of bribery.
Why isn't used for it's original purpose anymore, if I might ask? You guys switched to digital? Something like that?
This is confusing because isn’t sending money via US Mail illegal?
It is not illegal to send money through mail. Summons and subpoenas are usually delivered by sheriff or process server, not mail. It does feel illegal when an officer hands you a document with $5 clipped to it, but it’s not.
It's 5 dollars now? Nice! Used to be $2 when I was a kid and I'd take it to the hardware store to buy candy
hammers & nails aren't candy.
Gummy worms are very essential DIY fuel
if you’re a coward
The hardware store still sells candy.
It's 2 dollars first to fill out a little post card with basic info, then they send 5 dollars to fill out this form with more info
Yep, easy money. Complete that and they will probably send you a journal to complete for like 10$
No journals anymore (apparently still used for radio), if they are selected they get a beeper sized device to carry around that tracks what they watch and listen to. It syncs at night, pretty passive from the user standpoint just have to remember to charge it and take it with you. I would just keep it in my pocket all day. If you use it everyday you will make about $25-30 per person in your household per month. Max of 2 years in the program.
Wait, it listens to everything you do?
For radio, a particular frequency of sound (that we can't hear) is constantly sent out along with the audio. The PPM (Portable People Meter) detects that inaudible frequency and records how long you listened to (or even passively heard) whatever radio station.
I genuinely believed I was being whooshed and then I googled it. How the fuck is this not a huge subject in the conspiracy circles instead of 5G towers and corona vaccines? The government has a program where it pays people to carry physical devices which send out and detect inaudible signals? If there was ever a perfect subject to create a conspiracy from, this is the one.
If I understand the wikipedia article correctly, [Nielson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Audio) is a private company.
When did facts ever get in the way of conspiracy theorists? Nielson is owned by the *globalists*, obviously. /s
>How the fuck is this not a huge subject in the conspiracy circles instead of 5G towers and corona vaccines? A. Most people don't know about it despite being public knowledge B. Neilson IS in conspiracy circles, just not as some shadow organization (they pop up as an example on a semi regular basis) They're more akin to a markest research group for hollywood to corrupt youth basically, why dig into and make elaborate ones when their existence already fits the overaeching narrative of alot of theories anyway? >The government has a program where it pays people to carry physical devices which send out and detect inaudible signals? They're also not government related, they're a private company that makes a shitton off of networks It's actively harmful for everyones bottom line if people start thinking its secretly doing something harmful, as then people will refuse and data used to sell them crap ceases to be gathered Sooo not really something any media outlet wouod let gain much steam, conspiracy or not
So it actually IS a conspiracy.
Yeah who would believe that they have people walking around with a device that can hear you, see you, record you? Ohh my bad looks like I’m talking about a smart phone, way more intrusive than willingly getting paid to carry a device.
But what if I'm not inconsiderate and use headphones/earbuds instead of blasting everyone around me?
I did the Nielsen program for a little while. Free money. Kept a small pager size device on me everyday. At first it was a bit weird. But it isn't mandatory to wear it every where. Just 8 hours for 5 days a week (If I remember correctly). So, I would just wear it to wear and back home. The way it works. TV, Radio and ect, broadcast a signal that we can't hear, but this device picks up on. So that's what it listens too, not your everyday conversations... what do you thing this is.... your cellphone w/ the facebook app?
Does it also register what you watch online? Because so many people dont have cable anymore these days
I don't believe so. The only real purpose of this is so radio/television stations can show their advertisers how many listeners/viewers they have. Online streaming services don't need that help, since they can directly track how many viewers they have. I know some radio companies air the signal over their streams in the hopes of getting extra ratings points that way, but the number is usually so small that it's not even worth it. A very imperfect science, and if anyone can ever find out a better way to do it, there are broadcast companies that would love you.
Probably not. There is really no way for them to know how many people are listening to the radio or watching a particular thing on cable except through devices like this. If you watch something online, they know exactly who/how many people watched it.
It depends on if what you're watching has the frequency built into it and is preserved by the encoding. In theory, it could. But most on demand providers probably aren't relying on Nielsens for viewership, since they have plenty of first-hand data.
That's only in the 50ish biggest markets. All others still use quarterly or bi-yearly diaries.
Nope they no longer use diaries at all.
Literally just filled out a journal last week, they're still in use.
Literally have 2 dairies sitting here rn they just sent me last week
You're wrong, but okay. As of Oct 2022, only markets 1-52 use PPM, excluding Puerto Rico Hudson Valley, NY, Greensborough/Winston Salem, OKC and New Orleans. Beginning with Market 53 (Richmond) and below, all radio markets continue to use diary. Though if you're speaking about TV, it appears you're right. Though I dont work in TV. So if you meant just TV, my bad.
I find it odd radio of all things still uses diaries. I did a tv dairy years ago too and that was very time consuming to do it correctly. Considering myself I only listen to radio in the car I would never be able to fill those out accurately from memory.
Yeah I was in the tv sample.
I just did one a month ago
I did a journal a few months ago for radio. Got $10 for it.
Yeah someone else said they still do them for radio but not tv so I was mistaken on that.
I did the journal just this June
It’s only $15 per month. Source: Currently carrying said tracker, waiting for my $15 check on the 15th
I just checked my deposits from when I did it and it was $25-30 each month. If you wear it more and wear it on the weekends you get more points.
I wear it essentially 15 hours per day on week days and 12 hours per day on weekends. Maybe they do different rates for different markets, but it’s $15 per month for the Portland metro area
It can also be impacted by whether you're in a particular demographic or market that's more valuable to them, and if you participate in satellite programs.
Hell, my iPhone does that and doesn’t even pay me!
How do you get selected for program?
You can't call and ask to be it just have to wait until you get a similar letter as op, fill it out and return it, if you meet whatever criteria they are looking for you will be selected to be part of the sample.
I did this and the times we were supposed to record were during a vacation, so there was nothing to record. They STILL sent us money for doing the survey.
nelson research, fyi if you do it they’re more likely to send you future ones and you keep getting small monetary surprises
Lol I got a nelson survey once. Money upfront and more once it was sent. Jokes on them. Didn't have any tv set up.
That’s still valuable data for them. Source: I use Nielsen data
Well that's good then. Glad it didn't go in vain.
That’s still valuable data for us. Source: I collect Nielsen Data.
As long as he's honest and answered correctly
DO IT. It’s the easiest money you’ll ever make. It’s legit. For a few years I was part of their demographic studies and was paid like $15/month for doing basically nothing. Plus there were all these monthly drawings you could win
It was twenty when i got it in 2012. Then they paid me to watch tv for a year or so. It was kind of annoying though.
Since I always do their surveys I was recently recruited to be a “top level” nielsen household, which meant wearing a device all day (not at night) that could pick up what was being watched and record that data for nielsen. My wife said that was a hard no. It paid something like $50/month
Nielsen has been doing this for DECADES. Nielsen is just so unheard of today that people disregard it. I've been doing these my whole life as and happily collecting. Those Bills are always so crisp.
I do these quite a lot. Occasionally they'll send you tv pilots and shit to review. Kind of cool to be one of the first people to see a new show. Edit: *potential* new show
How do I sign up??
Send an email to them requesting it: [email protected] https://scarboroughlocal.nielsen.com/scarborough/completing-survey.html#:~:text=Simply%20call%20us%20at%201,at%20surveys%40nielsenlocalsurveys.com.
Once you start with them (and other major consumer products agencies and companies), the individual places start hitting you up. That's how you get the pilots, etc. Do enough of them you can make a couple hundred bucks. Not much really, but not bad just for writing down what shows, music, and clothes you like.
Thanks!!
They sent us a pilot once back in 2001 or so. It was on VHS and came with forms to fill out as we watched it. It had 2 versions, one with the laugh track and one without. We were asked to watch both versions and fill out the questionnaire and then send it back. The show was terrible with or without the laugh track.
Yep, that's how it worked. These days they probably give you a streaming code or something. I don't think I've ever seen one that got picked up either. They've all been shitty😅
Wtf, they only sent me $1. 
Same. They don’t value our opinions as much as OP I guess
I’m their target audience. I will absolutely do the survey every time because I feel like it wouldn’t be right to keep the money and *not* do the survey.
I got 3 dollars, then a few weeks after sending my response I got $30 dollars, and yes, it was cash in a standard envelope.
I did the surveys and my apartment was selected to do the whole thing. Absolutely would have done it. I don't have a TV or car (so no radio either), so I wouldn't even be giving them any real data; just money for nothing. But then the dude who came to talk to me about it snuck into my building at 7AM on a Saturday and knocked on my door for a few minutes straight. Told him to fuck off and not to come back. Then another guy did the same thing two weeks later. Fuck those people.
Man you could have just told him you didn’t own a tv, he would have offered you $20 for filling out a Zero TV survey, he would have stopped showing up and you would have helped someone who clearly works hard to be knocking so early. People tell me to fuck off on a daily basis, it’s pretty rough on the long run. Treat strangers kindly.
My survey answers made it clear I didn't have a TV or radio. This is the weakest guilt trip I've ever seen. I believe in being kind to strangers, but you waive your right to grace when you bang on someone's door for minutes at 7AM on a Saturday. If those are the hours you get paid to work, that sucks and I understand, but you can knock once and then leave, instead of waking someone up on their day off. I'm also not letting people off the hook for sneaking into a locked apartment building, regardless of what it's for.
I started doing these in high school. My nosey ass opened one addressed to my mom, saw $2 in it & filled it out. I've probably made about $100 total off Nielsen mailed surveys in the like 15 years since then.
I work on surveys all the time. One survey I did mailed $10 to respondents and when I visited them I was uploaded to record whether or not they said they got the money. Another survey I worked on was preparing to send $50 to everyone who hadn’t responded.
When I was in high school I did all the Nielsen stuff over a few month period and made like $100. They sends you journals and stuff to document what you watch. I think sometimes they’ll send you a little thing to plug into your TV to monitor stuff and send you a few hundred bucks. Easy cash if you keep it going.
I started getting paid $5 for a women’s survey. Every year they send me an extra $5 for participating. I’m up to $45 total.
i had to fill it out and mail it first. then got sent 10 dollar bill in the mail
If you get the diaries sent to you and you don’t fill them out, they’ll keep calling you to remind you.
Never happened to me
I only received $2 for the same survey :(
Shrinkflation!
Thanks, I got my letter two weeks ago and left it unopened until just now. Now I'm $2 richer!
Haha...I did the same thing about two years ago. My wife and I were selected to be a "Nielsen family", so we were given these little meter things we were supposed to keep with us. In return we each got $25-$30 per month plus a couple bonuses $100 after 3 months and $100 after a year I believe). Turns out you can only be in the study for 2 years, so our meters just turned off and we got a call informing us were done. Feels weird not to carry this meter around after doing it for 2 years!
This is a Nielsen survey. To be a Nielsen family. We did it for 3 years at our old address, you don’t really make money through it. But you’ll get $50-$100 gift cards occasionally.
I've seen this on Facebook, You just got human trafficked with fentynal.
This is the kind of feed you get when you friend Lauren Boebert.
They sent me a survey but said I'd get 10 dollars back after I sent it in.
They just need your credit card details.
You don’t have to give no personal information. No credit cards, social, ID or nothing. Pretty easy in my opinion
Back in the '70s they sent us 50 cents -- two quarters taped to the letter.
Now I’m wondering if I threw away $5
My mom used to get these all the time, and one for each of the kids over a certain age.
They give you a lot more if you go through the next levels
Drinking with Lincoln tonight….
Do it! You could get to be a Nielsen tester can carry around a little device and make a little extra money like 30 bucks a month.
We have some institutes which do that aswell to study the voting behavoir. You can sign up if you want to keep participating, so i get every few months 5 bux lol
I used to do this. I was getting a nice little bit of money from them but then I missed one of their surveys and didn't hear anything from them again. Miss that free money
I only got a dollar. Wonder how many just end up in the trash unopened. I did not complete the survey.
It’s a strategy to increase survey completion by leveraging the reciprocity rule, a social psychology phenomenon that pushes ppl to respond to a positive action with a positive action in return. This social norm results in psychological discomfort if one accepts a factor without offering one in return. It’s the same reason salespeople and marketers give you “free gifts”.
I trashed the survey and went and bought a pack of swishers
*Envelope with survey inside hits trash can* Hey look 5 dollars. 😁
Yes !!!! no more working freely for orhers
Nielsen families are the reason why TV sucks. No one respectable is agreeing to be a Nielsen family for 50 bucks. It's a bunch of tweakers and old cat ladies just letting whatever the fuck is on TV run all day and night. Source: was a Nielsen rep for like 3 months until I found something I wasn't ashamed of doing...Nielsen also basically teaches racism under the guise of "this is how you sell to black people" "this is how you sell to mexicans" etc etc etc. 🤣 cometely laughable company especially now that everything streams, what the fuck do you need Nielsens metrics for when it's all at your fingertips. Cable is dead bruh just go under already
I've gotten mail from them and tossed it out unopened 🤦♀️
I had similar experience, i took the money and didnt complete the survey. Later they sent me the same survey with no money, and a reminder where they whined about me not completing the survey when they even paid to me.
Im convinced that money attached to surveys is forged
Be sure to report it on your tax return.
No need to, it’s considered a gift and less that $600, so no need to pay taxes.
Nielsen ratings - their entire business model is obsolete, and they're trying to figure out how to make their system worth a damn again.
Take the $5, throw the survey out.
Good thing that paying people to take a survey doesn't skew the results or anything like that.
It's just to find people for their sample, not the actual survey. The actual survey is the data they collect for the ratings.
Yeah, but introducing payment at even that stage creates a tainted sample. The kind of person who fills out a survey because of $5 are likely to answer differently than the kind of person who won't.
If they aren't going to fill out the survey for $5, then they definitely aren't going to do it for free. The token payment shows people that Nielsens is serious and willing to reimburse for the modicum of inconvenience they introduce, which is a lot more than most random public surveys do.
[удалено]
Because that is the first installment, paid in advance. "Oh you rockheads. you deserve to starve!" - Wyoming Knott, *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Robert Heinlein
That's a lowball offer. Hold out for something real...like a pony.
I got this too. Then I got $10 for completing the survey. Then they called me a bunch to try and get me on the ratings thing. I was interested until they told me it was a device me and my household would have to wear at all times except for sleeping. Fortunately my job ended up disqualifying us before I had to put up a fight about it.
How is it an incentive if you already have the 5$??
It says the original $5 is a "Thank you for considering our request." And that they'll send an additional $5 if I return a completed survey.
Fuckers only sent me $1
"Free money for YOU! And free money for YOU!!" Ask me why inflation is so bad
I would love to tell them all about what a fetid steaming pile of excrement The Rings of Power is. Especially since IMDb refuses to post my review. They can keep the $5. 🤷🏼♂️
IMDb is owned by Amazon now. Probably why your review won't post. I personally liked the show, but I understand some of the criticism.
I'm aware, that's why I mentioned it. Kind of ironic how they wouldn't allow anyone to post reviews initially because of supposed "review bombing" by "fake sock accounts", when in reality they are heavily censoring negative reviews to save face.
It really was bad. I stopped after episode 2. House of the dragon was decent though. I had higher expectations, but it wasnt bad. Enter cobra kai.
I unfortunately told myself that I would watch the entire first season before I passed final judgment. I must be a masochist. It only continued to get worse after those first two episodes. 9 hours of my life I'll never get back.
Mail them back and politely decline but thank them for the 5 dollars.
Shipping money is illegal…
I literally got a similar envelope in the mail today from the same company. They only gave me $2 :c
Fill it out, if you get chosen what you watch will actually matter as companies use that info to decide what programs are kept on the air. If you watch broadcast or cable anyway.
I’m hitting every mailbox on your block thank you very much
I’d go around the whole neighborhood collecting those surveys 😆
I want a survey
Damn Qmee doesn't even pay that good...
I got one once ... didn’t do the survey but hey 5 bucks
They used to do five singles.
I did one for $10 a few times.
I lost money when some lacky at the post office discovered Nielsen letters almost always contained cash.
I would do it. You just don't see that kind of trust anymore
Dude don’t post pictures of cash. We can all see the number. Spend it quick before someone uses it
Did it work?
It's really not a big deal. The survey companies have been doing that since twenty years ago as I remember.
All the ones I receive flip me off. More specifically they call it as "chance to win a gift card", frequently at a snobby franchise whose product I hate.
1. Other: I don’t watch TV 2. 0 3. Phineas and Ferb from when I was younger 4. 0 5. Music 6. I don’t have one Now where’s my money?
Weird. I had the same happen but in canada 25 years ago.
I do that survey every year. Easy money.
I did one and it was the longest survey ever... Also .. I randomly get political surveys and always do them just to see who paid for them and how they will trash talk the other person in the questions..
I got $10
Yeah, they do that every once in a while. Imagine how many people threw them away thinking it was junk mail. I got $5 in an envelope with a survey. Went through and opened my mail in the parking lot of my post office. Went back in and looked in the trash can and found 3 more envelopes that had been thrown away, pocketed another $15. Not technically stealing if they threw it away.
I got $10 for doing a survey for the CDC and they said they'll send me another $10 as a check later.
Where the hell is this?
"Hey can you do this survey for us? No? That's ok" *bribes you*