Polls...

[magid]

I just got a call from a company that's polling people about cable (something or other). I said I would answer questions, but they wouldn't get much out of me, because I don't have a TV. The guy's response? "Oh, I'm sorry about that," then rang off, before I could say that I didn't need to be pitied for my television-free status. Really, it's a pretty sad commentary on USian life.


edit, 1600 OK, what is it about media polls today? I just got another call about TV use, and this one wasn't deterred by my lack of TV, since I at least had a computer (she didn't care that it is such an old one that it can't play video, as long as it has Internet access) and phone (well, duh: they called me). This time I didn't complete the poll because they already had enough people from my ZIP code, though I gathered from the few questions before that that the topic was about service bundling.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

they were just sorry because now they had to make another call. :(

[magid.livejournal.com]

I assume they're paid by the hour, not the number of completed calls.

[gingicat]

That would make sense, but no, most of that is paid by the completed survey.

[arfur]

Yeah...I just got a call for a radio ratings survey. I took it, mostly because I could honestly say that I listened to WERS the most over the last week. :-)

But I think, especially with the advent of Do Not Call lists, more and more of those calls are actually "push" surveys -- sales calls disguised as surveys that just happen to include questions like "would knowing that Channel 4 has an all-new star news team change your previous answer?"

[magid.livejournal.com]

I was thinking there might be more marketing sorts of surveys happening.

My phone rang at least 5 times yesterday, no messages left. I bet most/all of them were surveys. Stole my naps, too, damn them.