It’s a lot cheaper (but less accurate) to send out some surveys and process them than it is to send out actual equipment, so they do a mix of both to balance costs with accuracy.
In my case, whatever equipment wouldn’t have done anything. I don’t watch cable or on the air TV, so all my entries were like: Hulu - The Simpsons, or Netflix DVD - Downton Abbey.
Not sure how they account for those in their ratings calculations.
Scarbourough Research sent me a letter with $5 in it, then called me and I did a phone survey and they mailed me another $5 and a lengthy paper survey. But I blew that off (they promised $30 to send it in though) and they sent me a reminder letter with another buck in it.
I was turned off by the hard press to give my income on the phone. I understand that the phone person wasn’t personally interested but if you call my house in the evening and start asking me questions, then accept “No” for an answer to one of them gracefully and move on instead of pestering me repeatedly.
That’s looney-toones.
I think the boxes are for overnights, the diaries are for the adjustments they make to the overnights to reach the final rating. At least that’s what I heard once, and it was a while back so maybe not anymore.
Obviously the diaries couldn’t be part of the overnights, because you don’t send it in until after the seventh day and it doesn’t get there right after you send it because transit time (and that’s even if you send it right away rather than procrastinating a few days)
I did the diaries twice, and what was most annoying was both times they only sent one diary, but expected us to use a separate diary for each tv in the house, so we had to photocopy the damn thing to get enough copies.
I really don’t think I actually helped my shows any. Most were canceled within the season anyway.