Monday night Oprah Winfrey asked her 9 million Twitter followers to turn away from the Grammy Awards and watch the OWN Network instead, especially if they had Nielsen boxes. Too bad you're not supposed to do that...
After a thorough dragging by Twitter followers who branded Oprah desperate for ratings, O tried to defend herself, but offending her followers wasn't the only problem. Nielsen rated shows aren't supposed to solicit viewers especially during sweeps. So after a few furious emails back and forth with the Nielsen people, Oprah apologized and removed the Tweet and next week OWN's ratings will come with an asterisk denoting “possible biasing effect.”
Nielsen ratings are used to set advertising rates and determine the success or failure of TV shows.
