Mike Wallace and A.C. Nielsen Jr.
One of the most important people in the television business, Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., has died at age 92.
Nielsen took over the eponymous company founded by his father, and turned it into a market research powerhouse–with a particular expertise in television ratings. The Nielsen company continues to be the primary provider of TV ratings to this day, and its ratings points are said to be the “currency” of the TV business.
From his obituary in the New York Times:
He worked for the company his entire adult life, joining in 1945 after serving four years in World War II as a major in the Corps of Engineers. One part of his wartime experience gave him insight into the potential importance of computers. He was assigned to construct a building to house a machine that would create elaborate tables to calculate the metrics for firing big artillery guns accurately.
Mr. Nielsen recognized the potential to use such calculations in the family business, which at that point had gained most of its profit from an index that measured and tracked sales of items in food and drug stores…
In 1948, at Mr. Nielsen’s urging, the company invested $150,000 in building the first general-purpose computer, the Univac.
Nielsen ratings have been a boon and bane for just about every TV network and media company. For decades companies have complained about flaws in the company’s ratings system–particularly when it comes to measuring specific demographics. Nonetheless, 61 years after first getting into the TV ratings business, Nielsen is still the gold standard of measurement.