This 1956 black and white film produced by Vortex Incorporated aims to address the “billion dollar” question: “What programs are America’s 40 million TV receivers most frequently viewing?” The answer provided is “Poll-O-Meter, an automatic, electronic tuning recorder of television reception” developed by California’s Calbest Electronics Company. The inadequacies of early viewer survey methods are reviewed, and a roving prototype van with a mounted antennae is presented as an alternative viewership tracking device in this appeal to early television networks seeking ratings statistics (TRT: 13:22).
A wood-paneled, cabinet style Westinghouse television console in a living room (0:08). Closeup on the television dial (0:26). Title: “The Billion Dollar Question, Presented by the Poll-O-Meter Corp., Produced by Vortex, Inc.” John Florea and John Nash are credited (0:34). CBS Television City in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District. KTTV Studios at Metromedia Square on Sunset Blvd. A KTLA Circus tent (0:53). The Bronson Ave. gate of Paramount Pictures studios in Hollywood. Republic Pictures in Studio City. Revue Productions, aka Revue Studios. A sign: “The Red Skelton Show.” Desilu Studios’ soundstage exteriors feature signage for “Our Miss Brooks” and “I Love Lucy.” A sign: “Desilu Playhouse Danny Thomas Show” (1:19). June 1956 Newspapers and trade magazines, “Variety, TV, Hollywood Reporter,” etc. (1:39). Title overlays: “600 Million in Time Sales, 400 Million in Production, A Billion Dollars a Year” (1:53). A woman answers a phone in her kitchen while using an electric mixer. She strains to see what her children are watching on television (2:05). A door-to-door questionnaire is dramatised. The woman of the house appears distracted by a child. A television technician installs an audience measurement device for tracking audiences (2:37). A young, unsupervised girl uses a pencil to fill out a viewership “diary” (3:24). Closeup on a hand-painted Calbest Poll-O-Meter console with lights, switches, patch cables, and rotary numeric displays (4:00). Exterior Calbest Electronics Co. Inside the plant, a long row of Calbest employees work seated at an elevated counter (4:29). A bespectacled Calbest technician with a mustache operates the Poll-O-Meter while crouched in the back of a van. The mobile unit, a Volkswagen Type 2 van modified with a large antennae dish mounted atop it, drives residential streets (4:47). Crossfade to an animated cartoon of a Poll-O-Meter mobile unit, drawn in an angular modern style. The antennae dish points at passing homes, and retrieves viewer data (5:13). The Poll-O-Meter parks outside a residential Los Angeles Home. Inside, two men sit by a television receiver: Dan Schuler and Bob Vogel of the Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation (6:06). Mr. Schuler speaks, holding a secret envelope of channel numbers. Mr. Vogel walks to the Poll-O-Meter (7:14). The secret envelope is opened (8:21). Inside the Poll-O-Meter van (8:33). Schuler turns the television’s tuning dial. A checklist shows a perfect score of accuracy (8:59). Vogel speaks, verifying their results. “Totalizer” numbers show the number of times a certain channel was tuned (10:29). A signed statement from The Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation (11:05). Poll-O-Meter on the prowl in the suburbs, a mobile home park. Closeup on its antennae (11:19). A title card with statistics shows TV counts per market. Montage of antennae (12:26). “The Answer, Poll-O-Meter, Inc.” (13:08).
Based on the dominance of Nielsen Media Research ratings boxes (the Audimeter, the People Meter, etc.) and paper “viewer diary” surveys, which debuted in 1950 and persist well into the present day, it is unlikely that the competing Poll-O-Meter found widespread adoption. Though Poll-O-Meter would have likely seen reduced response bias, privacy concerns may have also been a factor in deciding the fate of this data collecting device, designed as it was for discreet, involuntary surveillance.
