Nielson Family...sort of

In November 2007, we got a knock on our door from a guy that worked for a company called Arbitron. They are sorta like Nielson with ratings and things like that. He asked if we wanted to carry around some meters, earn money and be part of the ratings for tv and radio. This sounded like my dream job. Getting paid to watch tv! And maybe helping the shows that I like stay on the air. Sold! Sign us up. So we got set up with these nifty "meters" which we renamed beepers, cause that's what they looked like.

Meters:


All we had to do was wear them from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed. Then we put them in some chargers over night so they could recharge the battery and then download the info.

Meters in their overnight chargers:



Easy right? Well, it was pretty easy, but kinda got to be a pain to have to wear these beepers everywhere. You couldn't set them down, they always had to be in motion, otherwise they would shut down and wouldn't record anything. And the longer you had it on, the more points you earned, which dictated how much money you would get for the month. Now, it wasn't a ton of money, but we did get little bonuses here and there and we each got our own checks, so it did add up. All in all, it was a fun experience. Only a few people knew about it, because you were supposed to keep it a secret that you had them so no one could take advantage of the fact that you had these and use it to their benefit. IE if you knew someone that worked for a radio station, they could try to get their radio station around you as much as possible so they could get more ratings. Whatever. We didn't know anyone that works for a tv or radio station, so we really didn't see that as a big deal. But anyway, you can do this for up to 2 years. We were coming up on our 2 year mark in November, but I got a call around the beginning of September saying that they are leaving the Houston Market, so we are done. So I packed up the meters and the chargers and sent them back. All in all it was a fun experience and not one many people get to do. We like to think that some of the shows that were in danger of being cancelled, were not because of us!