How are TV and radio ratings done?

[thereismore]

For instance, how do they know how many people watch a certain show on a certain day? From the status of your cable box? What about radio? Thanks.

[ailsagirl]

1. If it's the Nielsen ratings, they choose people who fit a specific

demographic (we were interviewed once and were not chosen
LOL) and attach a device to their TVs. As I recall, it's a very
small number of TVs that are monitored.

Not terribly democratic but we should be used to that by now.

But things might have changed-- this was in the 1980s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

[fhqwhgads]

10. well...

...advertisers buy tv ad time against specific demographics. they don't buy against the entire tv audience - they target their buys.

and yeah, the nielsen universe isn't huge - but statistically it works. however, as advertisers seek more granular data, the sample population will need to be increased.

[ailsagirl]

14. Welcome to DU, fhqwhgads!!

:hi:

[Orangepeel]

2. They project the number from a sample

the same way they do with a poll. A company called Nielsen recruits a panel of television families (supposedly representative of the population) who agree to attach a box to their TV that records what they watch (they have a special remote that they are supposed to use to indicate who in the household is watching what).

Ratings for local TV stations are done similarly, but viewers keep a written diary of what they watch instead of getting a box.

You can read more here:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/

A lot of media companies and advertisers are unhappy with Nielsen, but there isn't a good alternative so they are stuck.

Radio ratings are usually determined with phone polls.

[justgamma]

3. Radio ratings by Arbitron

are done with a diary they send you. You write down what you are listening to each hour and send the diary back.

[shadowknows69]

4. horribly flawed system too IMO

n/t

[fhqwhgads]

6. this will change

..arbitron is testing a new passive measurement system called the personal people meter (ppm), and nielsen has the new local people meter (lpm) that they've rolled out in certain major markets for testing. both will certainly be more accurate than the diaries.

in addition, there's been movement by other companies trying to get into the business. we're going to see huge changes in the next five to ten years. with digital video recorders (i.e. tivo), video-on-demand, interactive television, content being delivered to non-traditional platforms, advertisers are going to have to change the way they reach consumers, and media researchers are going to have to provide better measurement.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. my experience

About ten years ago, my family got a journal to fill out for a week. We were supposed to write down what we watched and who was watching. The funniest part was that in the envelope they sent us, there were two crisp one dollar bills to reward us for our efforts. It seemed very 1950s.

I do think there's a common misperception that everyone's TV is being monitored all the time. You'll hear people say things like, "Change the channel! We don't want to help Fux News's ratings!"

[KurtNYC]

7. A variety of ways

Nielsen - use both meters attached to TVs and written diaries. There are approximately 5000 Neilsen families at any given time. Nielsen scores broadcast television in terms of percentage of total viewers ("share") and total viewers. So you will see numbers like 17/3.9 which means 17% of televisions were tuned to the program and the total number of viewers watching the program was 3.9 million.

Cable systems - my cable provider (TimeWarnerAOL) can tell what channel I am watching, whether I have muted (from the cable box), etc. What they do with this info is largely unknown but they have great data from all of their subscribers if they REALLY want to know what people are watching.

Arbitron - diaries and surveys, mostly for cable television

The ratings are screwy of course and as others have mentioned they are used mostly for advertisers so they break out numbers for how many 18 - 34 yr olds, 18 - 49, etc. are watching a given program.

And just to address a very common misconception: Network broadcasters sell the audience to the advertisers. The audience is NOT the customer.

Nielsen methods:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/

[KharmaTrain]

11. Also Different Methodologies

Depending on the market, the demo and the sample size, the samples are weighted to "adjust" for whatever results the specific company desires.

Arbitron, being the radio survey company, tends to focus more on minorities as they are paid more to participate in surveys while Neilsen focuses on white suburbs.

Nope, the audience has never been the customer...just the byproduct. The customer is always the advertiser who pays the bills and this includes the ratings companies as well as the broadcasters.

[fhqwhgads]

12. actually...

...the nielsen ratings that you see published are rating/share. one rating point equals 1 percent of US television households (total of about 110 million). so the rating tells you how many households were tuned to a particular program.

[Mizmoon]

8. I was a "neilson household"

They put a box on your cable box that tracks what shows you watch. That's it. We represented millions of viewers.

[Tracer]

9. I was sent a Neilsen book ...

... and promptly threw it in the trash.

A few days later, someone form Neilsen phoned and, when I mentioned the book was in the trash, became infuriated at me - to the point of her wanting me to dig through the trash and mail the book back!

[otohara]

13. My Family Was Sent 3 Arbitron

diaries - I slanted the numbers for the small alternative station, big time. This little station (now a Clear Channel) had the biggest numbers in it's history all because of those 3 books. They asked if I worked in radio when I got the call from Arbitron and I did not - but later i did.