Whenever the black donnellys aired, I usually was not around to view it live. I always had my DVR scheduled to record the episodes so I could watch them several hours later.
Also at that time I probably did not even have my reciever/dvr viewing that channel while recording. Most DVR boxes can record 2-3 channels at once... How is that being tuned in, or is it??? Could this drastically be affecting ratings?

I'm sure it means that the Nielsen ratings do not depict an accurate account of the entire viewing audience.. but.. it still means something.. if 14 million viewers are watching American Idol or Ugly Betty.. according to Nielsen and say 5 million for TBD. If they did include the DVR ratings, say those shows received 20 million viewers, TBD may have say 11 million.. I don't think the Nielsen ratings would be anymore inflated.

I myself, always Tivoed The Black Donnellys. I usually watched it after the 9pm, to skip the commercials.. and I would watch it approx. 2 times a week. Once with someone in my family, and again with someone else. I'm sure that's something they haven't figured it out yet.. How do you count, watching the Tivoed episodes multiple times. Nielsen counts reruns. With Tivo.. you'd have to consider that, and how long someone keeps the episode on their DVR.

I am sure that plays a big role in the ratings. That is how I watched TBD and most of the shows that I watch. I like to fast forward the commercials and with TBD, I always had to go back and listen really close to some of the dialogue. Especially when Tommy spoke, sometimes he mumbled and I had to replay the scene a couple of times until I figured out what he said. Also, I like to look at him too!!!

I just think that most of the Nielsen families suck. LOL J/K I think that the Nielsen rating system is extremely outdated and they need a new way of rating TV shows.

I read somewhere that every time we watched an episode online someone somewhere counted it. I only caught the first one on tv, all the others I've watched online (multiple times) and have turned several other people onto the online episodes now that they're all available.