Nielsen to discover that no one watches commercials

I wanted to point this out because it is mind boggling that no one has thought to do this sooner. The real question is how they are actually going to do it.

Why did we have to wait for the DVR phenomenon to come about? It's like Advertisers never had a clue that people don't like being interrupted during television shows to find out about products they don't care about until people started to hit fast forward.

Do these people not use the bathroom during commercials? Or check email? Or do anything else besides watch intently, paper and pencil in hand, eagerly awaiting the next sale at Pottery Barn to be bestowed upon them by their mystical idiot box?

I emplor you, answer me!

At any rate, Nielson Media Research is going to attempt to find out what everyone already knows -- and spend a lot of money doing it. Perhaps the forthcoming empical evidence will cause a paradigm shift in the way we watch TV -- for better or worse.

Nielsen Media Research will start monitoring commercial viewing habits starting in November. The Wall Street Journal reports that this could lead to a decline in advertising rates since Nielsen is expected to learn what we already know: we tune out commercials. This hard evidence could lead to an increase of product placement, or advertising within a program instead of during program breaks. I'm not quite sure how Nielsen will know that viewers have walked away from the television for a snack or a bathroom break during commercials. It looks like they'll actually be tracking the way we use our DVRs and whether we fast-forward through commercials."

[Via TVSquad]