That’s very interesting, Lisa! My Nielsen set up is much different from the one you described. I have a box that records what I watch and with whom, and what their ages and sex are. No one cares much why I watch what I do, or even takes any notice. (good, because they might think there was something wrong with an adult who watches so much Spongebob.) And I was definitely told not to announce this fact to strangers. Which I feel comfortable doing right now only because my time with it (two year committment) is up next week. I wonder why they do things differently like that? Is it sweeps week or something? I thought I might have noticed something like that…
I’ve taken part in the same weekly survey as PunditLisa (twice, IIRC). I think it’s something they do as a supplement to the recording box system that Elusive is on. I don’t remember if the times I was surveyed were during a sweeps period. We were given a diary booklet for every TV in the house and whenever that TV was on we were supposed to write down what was being watched and who was watching it. There was also space to write down if we were watching one show while taping another, taping a show we were watching for later viewing, or watching a pre-recorded show.
I do remember that the last time we did this there were several nights when there were two shows we liked which were on at the same time; sometimes we would watch one and tape the other and sometimes we would just watch one and hope to catch the other on rerun. Well, the week we were surveyed we made a point of taping the one we didn’t watch and then watching the tape another night when there was nothing on, so it would get the credit for being viewed.