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Farewell, 'lady of the house'

Posted at 10:30 AM on August 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Media

Someone called my house last week and asked my wife, "is this the lady of the house?"

"There's no lady of the house here," she replied before hanging up.

We're pretty sure it wasn't the Nielsen company on the other end of the phone. Nielsen, the people who measure what people are watching on TV, and then report to the networks that people are watching garbage instead of decently-written shows, is retiring its "Lady of the House" demographic.

Among the many characteristics its report to network execs contains, the LOH shows what women who don't work outside the home are watching.

CNBC's Jane Wells says...

These days, the lady of the household is often a guy. Meantime, the owner-renter is often a woman, who's probably not really in her house much. She works, or runs 500 errands a day, or both. Maybe she's a single mother. Maybe she's not really much of a lady. She's like a man, only busier.

"Essentially, this is just the latest evolution in our TV measurement," says Nielsen's Julia Monti. "An analysis found that viewing estimates for "Lady of the House" are similar to those of the average female and that clients are no longer using this term for business transactions, thus we determined that it's time to phase it out."

About 40 years late.

Comments (9)

Nielsen's target market is probably most accurately described as " the obese half-wit" of the house.

Posted by Jim Shapiro | August 1, 2011 11:27 AM

I don't know about Nielsen, but a lot of people still use the term "housewife," despite having, for decades now, a pretty decent alternative: homemaker.

Posted by Jamie | August 1, 2011 12:19 PM

I think I might be in love with your wife, Bob. Being called "lady" makes my skin crawl.

Posted by Allie | August 1, 2011 12:58 PM

Allie, just curious: Does the introduction ''Ladies and gentleman..." make the old epithelial tissue wiggle too? :-)

Posted by Jim Shapiro | August 1, 2011 1:51 PM

Not to mention it ignores the percentage of queer households where there are 2 women living together or 2 men living together. And any transsexuals who don't buy in to the man/woman structure.

Posted by Phillip | August 1, 2011 2:30 PM

Sorry, transgendered folks, not transsexual.

Posted by Phillip | August 1, 2011 2:35 PM

Phillip, not to mention a house of ill repute, where the several ladies of the night would be confused as to whom the Nielsen rep really wished to speak with.

Posted by Jim Shapiro | August 1, 2011 3:10 PM

As a female head of household, I'd love to have a wife. Or reasonable facsimile thereof.

Posted by Cara | August 1, 2011 4:58 PM

The caller must have been the same person who wrote recently in Newsweek magazine about some woman's 'hen party.' I haven't heard that term since the '50's.

Posted by Momkat | August 1, 2011 9:43 PM