As promised. It starts when you get a postcard in the mail from Nielsen Television Research. The postcard simply says that you've been selected to be a Nielsen Family for the final week of sweeps, and rather plaintively adds, "We are not trying to sell you anything!" in bold type. Then comes a phone call.

The person on the other end asks a bunch of questions about your demographics and your television viewing habits, then explains that before the assigned week you will receive a Diary... and yes, you can tell he pronounces it with a capital "D." In this diary, you are to record exactly what television you watched, when you watched it, and who in the family did the watching. Then, when the week is up, you mail the Diary back to them ("and of course, we will pay for all the postage," the person helpfully adds).

As expected, the diary arrives a few days before the viewing period begins. This period lasts from Thursday to Wednesday (now you know why E.R. has its season finale a week before the rest of the schedule). The diary, decked out in tasteful shades of black and light blue, begins with the same questions the person on the phone already asked you. Like the Government, Nielsen is into redundancy. Also included are specific instructions on how to fill in the diary. Also included, somewhat surprisingly, are five one-dollar bills, a token of thanks. ("Perhaps you could use them to get a small gift for the children of your household," they helpfully suggest. We do not take their advice.)

There are columns for each and every member of the household. In column one goes the Male Head of Household, in column two the Female Head of Household, and the rest of the columns are to be filled in at your own discretion. There are two columns indicating the state of the TV (on or off) and columns for the program name, channel, station--even a column to check when the TV is on but no one is watching (a state almost unheard of in our home--I've never liked TVs as background noise). Across these columns are rows indicating the time of day, and naturally, you check off the appropriate column and row combination and bango, that's market research.

So what did we watch that week, the week of the 2002 Season Finales? Surprise! almost nothing. At least live, which is what the advertisers care about. The grand total of programs was, I think, three: Jeopardy! once, Blue's Clues, and the season finale of Enterprise. We taped quite a few, but since taping does an end-run around the Advertising Delivery Device that commercial television is, I don't even know if they count it. (If you tape a program without watching it live, you can indicate as such by writing "VCR" after the program name.)

I think, if anything, this Diary made us think about our viewing habits... and therefore, we watched less.