They look pretty much like ordinary remote controls, but the Nielsen people meters that came to South Florida eight months ago are going to change a lot more on your television than the channels.

Less local news. More reality and talk shows. Fewer cop dramas -- maybe even the death of a CSI or a Law & Order -- and more specialty cable channels. Not as many commercials, but the characters on your favorite sitcom may develop a sudden thirst for Coca-Cola, and an odd knack for holding the can right toward the camera. More TV programs on the Internet; more reruns and Jerry Springer clones on broadcast channels.

The people meter itself won't fire reporters, sign product placement deals, or recruit promiscuous Nazi dwarves to tell their stories on Springer's show. But by offering more details than ever before on what's being watched and by whom, television executives and analysts say the device will be the catalyst for the industry's most drastic changes since the days when Milton Berle and Howdy Doody ruled the airwaves.

''We're getting much closer to learning what's actually happening out there among viewers,'' says Tom Bierbaum, NBC's vice president in charge of ratings research. ``And it's motivating television people to investigate and build toward other business models.''

Measuring TV viewership is nothing new. Nielsen Media Research has been compiling TV data since the 1940s. For decades, the company relied on viewers in sample households to fill out paper diaries listing what shows they watched throughout the day. But as TV evolved from a world of three broadcast networks to a cable universe of 300 channels, the diaries were less and less practical.

''It's never been more complicated to track TV viewing,'' says Barbara McFarland, a Nielsen vice president, noting that viewers can watch DVRs, computer screens, even their cellphones. ``Never before have you had so many options -- not only do you have so many shows and channels to pick from, but you can pick the time to do it.''

LITTLE BOX, BIG IMPACT

Nielsen's answer lay in a technology it actually introduced in 1987: so-called people meters -- set-top boxes that record what channel is being watched, with each of a household's viewers punching a button to register who's actually watching. At first, people meters measured only national audiences. But early this decade, Nielsen began phasing them into the 25 biggest local TV markets. They reached Miami in October -- with the impact of a wrecking ball.

Ratings for most local newscasts dropped 30 percent or more -- some more than 50 percent. Fox's American Idol, which for seven years had stomped through the ratings like Godzilla through Tokyo, suddenly looked human after losing a quarter of its reported viewers. Overall, broadcast ratings dropped three percentage points while cable ratings rose about the same amount -- a seemingly small change that will cost stations tens of millions in advertising dollars.

''All the sudden the local media buyers and advertising agencies are over here saying, hey-hey-hey, you charged us for this many viewers, and you delivered a lot less,'' says one local station boss.

There have been plenty of harsh words between Nielsen and local TV executives over the people-meter ratings -- some of them in court. The corporate owners of WSVN-Fox 7, which lost 40 percent of its ratings in the people meter count, sued Nielsen in federal court, saying the ''obviously -- and dramatically -- defective'' ratings were costing it $1 million a month in advertising. The lawsuit also called Nielsen an illegal monopoly, suggesting WSVN may ask the court to break the company up.

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