ABSTRACT
Until the early 1980s, the practice of audience measurement for American television was a relatively stable and quiet business. For decades, Nielsen’s setmeter, the Audimeter, measured household ratings, while demographic data were collected through a simple family diary in which each family member was supposed to record which programmes and channels he or she had been watching during a week. This two-track system was used to determine the audience for programming on the three commercial networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. The system generally worked, advertisers and networks were satisfied enough. So long as there was a sense of balanced interests, there was no reason to question the system as the fair and objective basis for negotiations and decision making. In these circumstances, the available map of the streamlined audience could be used unproblematically-much to the industry’s peace of mind. In this uncertain business, at least one thing could be counted upon: that the regularities and patterns yielded by the Nielsen ratings give adequate information about the viewing behaviour of the audience at large. The ratings were the solid bedrock on which the industry lived: they told industry managers, or so it was the common belief, who their viewers were. Ratings discourse made the anonymous television audience visible in a neat and manageable way, and viewers seemed to be content and happy, or at least happy enough, with what they were offered. Otherwise, why should they keep on watching?
