Nielson has come under fire for their new electronic TV boxes. Unlike the viewing diaries they used to send out and trust the recipients to fill out accurately, these new boxes are always correct. What have they found in the first period they ahve used the boxes for ratings? Shows featuring minority casts have much lower rating than previously thought. This, of course, makes Nielson racist. It couldn't possibly be that most of these shows suck, or perhaps that fewer minorities watch TV now. Nope, the only plausible explanation is that Nielson is racist.

With Nielson's experience in the industry I find it hard to believe that anyone could fault their statistical analysis. Occam's Razor leads me to the only possible conclusion. Nielson is correct, and and shows with minority casts are not doing well. I don't really think that minorities are watching less TV, nor do I think they all suddenly decided that watching "whitebread" shows is the way to go. I really do think that most minority-driven shows on TV now suck. On the other hand, 10 years ago we had Family Matters, and I find it hard to believe that minority shows now could possibly be of lesser quality than Urkel and friends. Perhaps the statistical anomoly that causes the ratings to drop when more accurate measures are used was in effect as far back as Family Matters?