Ms Oprah Winfrey apologized on Monday for Twitting a message that encouraged people counted in Nielsen ratings to watch (OWN) her cable channel just after 9 p.m. on Sunday
“Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Neilsen box,””
As one of her nine million followers, I personally don’t see this has a desperate act to promote her one year old cable net work. Ms Winfrey always encouraging her followers and her viewers to tune into OWN on a daily basis to talk and pass on valuable information on topics address on her show. But, what appeared to most Twitter users as a desperate-sounding — call to watch her cable network channel, was seen at Nielsen as a potentially serious violation of its policy. For all who don’t know, Nielsen measures the television viewership of a sample of roughly 25,000 households across the United States, and its policy is works to ensure that the sample is not coerced to watch specific shows or channels..
According to the New York Times, after officials at OWN and Nielsen corresponded on Monday morning, Ms. Winfrey’s Twitter message was deleted. “I removed the tweet at the request of Nielsen,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “I intended no harm and apologize for the reference.”
The unusually blunt request, and the misspelling of the Nielsen company name, caused some Twitter users to doubt that Ms. Winfrey was the one actually doing the typing. But she was, said her executive producer, Sheri Salata, who was in the same room at the time. They were together at a hotel in Kingswood, Ga., that did not carry OWN — highlighting one of the problems for the channel, the fact that it is hard for some viewers to find. They were watching the Grammys as were tens of millions of others.
Five minutes after the post to Twitter about Nielsen, Ms. Winfrey wrote, “Commercial Grammy people..u can turn to OWN.”
Some replied to Ms. Winfrey to thank her for the reminder, but others criticized the tone of her messages. Ms. Winfrey replied to one of the people who labeled her message
“desperate” by saying, ” ‘desperate’ not ever a part of my vocab.”