This past Wednesday, November 1st, was the deadline for television networks to decide whether or not to take part in Nielsen's attempt to begin measuring commercial watching. That data will be released on December 11th. The first stroke experienced by a network executive will also by on December 11th, about five minutes after reading the data.

Seriously, though, the decision to actually watch commercials is now one that people are consiously making, even if they don't have DVRs. They might be on the computer while they're watching TV. They might be talking to their spouse or playing with the kids. They might have been waiting for the commercials to take a crap that would choke a donkey. Real numbers need to be provided to show how many people are making that choice since real numbers are the only ones that are going to be of value to advertisers. A program with such a skewed definition of a "commercial minute" and that can't distinguish between national and local advertising won't be able to provide such numbers.

Should be interesting to see what those numbers wind up looking like.