Sunday’s broadcast of the 2009 Golden Globe Awards, which featured wins by the TV show “30 Rock,” the film “Slumdog Millionaire,” actor Mickey Rourke, and actress Kate Winslet, drew nearly 14.9 million U.S. viewers.
By comparison, the 2004 Golden Globes drew the largest U.S. television audience (26.8 million viewers) of any Golden Globes telecast in the past 10 years.
Last year’s Golden Globe Awards – aired as a one-hour press conference, due to an ongoing “writers’ strike” – drew just over 6 million viewers.
View Golden Globes TV ratings from 1998 to 2008, below.

The column below, by Tom Pirovano, Nielsen, was recently published in Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” online newsletter.
1. Take higher margins in less price-sensitive categories
Ranking categories based on purchase frequency is a fast and inexpensive way of identifying categories that are least sensitive to higher pricing.  Shoppers are less likely to remember pricing on products purchased only once or twice per year. For higher-priced products, however, shoppers are more likely to shop around for the best deal.
2. Lower the thermostat in stores this winter
Your customers will be wearing coats anyway.  This will …

U.S. Box office earnings for the first weekend of the new year reached $123.2 million – down 28% from the prior weekend ($169.9 million), but up 10% compared to the same weekend a year ago ($112.5 million), Nielsen reported Monday.
Twentieth Century Fox’s “Marley & Me” remained in the top spot for the second weekend running, with earnings of almost $24.3 million between Jan. 2 and 4.
Walt Disney Studios’ ”Bedtime Stories” claimed second place, with earnings of $20.5 million, and Paramount’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” rounded out the top three, with an $18.7 million box office …

Nielsen retail industry experts Jonathan Banks, Todd Hale, Tom Pirovano, James Russo, and Jean-Jacques Vandenheede review the key trends that defined the U.S. retail sector in 2008 – and offer their predictions for the new year.
2008: Staying In Is The New Going Out
Americans are spending more time in front of their computers and televisions. The reach and frequency of TV, Internet, and time shifted TV use increased notably in 2008, as consumers on tight budgets opted to save money by staying home. 
2008: Economizing Strategies Go Digital
In 2008, 20% of consumer discussions online referenced strategies for managing grocery budgets.  …

The penetration of U.S. households completely unready for the transition to digital television dropped from 7.4% in November to 6.8% in December, Nielsen reported Friday.
Non-Hispanic households continue to be more ready for the transition than Hispanic households, but the rate of Hispanic readiness is picking up. After seeing no change in unready Hispanic households from October to November, that percentage dropped from 12.4% to 11.5% in December.

In recent months, U.S. households have accelerated their preparations for the nationwide switch to digital TV, Nielsen reported Tuesday.
The percentage of completely unready households declined from 8.4% in September 2008 to 7.7% last month — the largest single-month change in the past six months, according to Nielsen.

Just four months ahead of the nationwide transition to digital TV, more than 9 million U.S. households — 8.4% of all homes — remain unready for the switch to all-digital broadcasting, Nielsen reported Wednesday.
If the transition occurred today, those 9.6 million homes would unable to receive any television programming, while another 12.6 million households would have at least one television set that would no longer work.
In all, one in five U.S. households are either partially or completely unready for the government-mandated switch to digital programming that will occur on February 17, …

With the nationwide transition to digital TV in the U.S. just four months away, more than 9 million U.S. households remain unready for the switch to all-digital broadcasting, according to Nielsen.
NielsenWire recently spoke with the co-author of Nielsen’s most recent report on the transition to digital TV, Steve McGowan, Senior Vice President, Insights and Client Research Initiatives, Nielsen.
NielsenWire: How has digital preparedness changed since Nielsen’s last report this past spring?
Steve McGowan:
Not all that much.  Since last May, when 9.8% of homes were “completely unready,” the number has dropped by just …

Asian-Americans are at higher risk for being left without access to TV broadcasts when the analog-to-digital television transition occurs next February, Multichannel News reported Saturday.
As of this July, 13% of Asian immigrants in the U.S. owned television sets that were unequipped to receive digital TV broadcastin, according to Nielsen. 
In a separate story by the San Diego Union-Tribune on Monday, Anne Elliot, of Nielsen, noted that many unprepared households lack digital hardware for economic and cultural reasons. 
Elliot told the Union-Tribune that Black and Hispanic households and people under 35 are also under-prepared for …