Nielsen Turns The 'Channel' Off, Permanently

In a move that is a bit ironic and very symbolic for the television industry, Nielsen Wednesday said it has effectively turned off the TV channel. As part of the release of an annual report on America's television audiences, Nielsen said it had dropped one of its most popular features - data showing how many channels the average TV household receives - because in a digital, time-shifted multichannel universe, there no longer is a "consistent" meaning for the term "channel."

"In an analog world, one channel generally represented a single viewing source," Nielsen explained in the release of its annual Television Audience Report. "With the growth and evolution of digital television technology this is no longer the case." The move is ironic, because Nielsen originally got into the TV business in the 1950s by measuring which channels TV households were tuning to. It is symbolic, because Nielsen, and others in the media industry, are pushing to redefine television as something else: one of many platforms in a rapidly expanding "video" marketplace chockfull of potential new clients and reports to sell.