Nielson surveys

If you have been seeing "Arbitron" showing up on your caller ID a lot lately, they probably want to talk you into filling out a radio listening survey.

I am not sure why I agreed to do one. Maybe it was the lure of a fresh crispy $1 bill for every member of the household.

I did one of these surveys years ago and it's quick and easy and it's only for one week, so I don't really mind doing this one.

I wonder if this is still the only way for them to know how many listeners each radio station has?

What about TV? Are there still "Nielson families" that get a device hooked up to their TVs to record their viewing?

One time, in the early 1990's, I agreed to use a bar code scanner thingy  from a data gathering company, to scan everything I purchased.  In return I received packets of coupons from them.

It seemed so high tech at the time!