How do Ratings work??

[ps139]

I always see on TV that some show got "the highest ratings ever" or "we decided to cancel it after 4 episodes because the ratings weren't high enough."

How do they know who is watching what? Is there some detector built into televisions?

what if you change the channel midway through the show?

Please explain to me everything you can about this I have no idea how any of it works.

Grazie!

 

[Travis]

There is an orginazation called "Neilson". They choose and ask a small group of people through out the country to have a small box installed in their house that monitors exactly what they watch. Now, each one of these families represent so many thousands of people in the country. So, if one person with one of these boxes decides to watch Star Trek one night, he represents so many thousands of people watching Star trek. It is similar to our political polling process, where they poll one thousand people to represent the country.

Of course now with devices such as Tivo and other DVR technology they can track what more people are watching.

 

[ps139]

So one family represents thousands?? LOL what if a couple of families watch some really weird stuff!
Can you ask Neilson to get a box installed in your TV?

 

[caramelmudcake]

nope...I thinmk they pick randomlt and change them every so often

 

[AngelAmidala]

Yeah...the Nielson rating system isn't the best way to rate how many people watched (or taped) something.

For a class I took last semester I had to look into ratings on some reality programming (our project subject) and it was easy to get the ratings on the shows. But they had these like phenominal numbers which I just couldn't believe that EVERYONE in the world was watching a particular show and nothing else.

Definitely not an accurate way to judge what's good and what's not on TV. Unfortunately.