How does a TV channel calculate how many viewers it had for one particular show?

Question

Any mathmatical formulas available?

Answer 1

It extrapolates the data from the Nielsen households (25,000 reporting at any one time).

There's an estimated 110 million viewing households in the US. A single national household ratings point equals 1% of the viewing public, or 1,022,000 households.

Answer 2

This is done by polling. It's inexact, but the larger the sample size, he more accurate it should theoretically be.

That's how they do the Nielsen Ratings. They poll like 10,000 or 100,000 people from a market segment on what shows they watched on a particular night. The percentages of the answers will determine what ratings (what percentage of viewers) a specific channel got at a specific time.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Nielsen+Ratings

It's assumed that a broad crossection of viewers will be representative of the population as a whole, in terms of who watched what. Or they assume the larger the sample, the more accurate it will be for the whole population. They figure that if 50% of 100,000 people watched American Idol, that appx 47-53% out of 1,000,000 watched it (I say it as a range since there's a margin of error involved)...

Answer 3

Television ratings begin with the sample. The viewing habits of only about 5000 households (about 13,000 people) are used to represent 270 million Americans. The sampling home is recruited for two years and the sample is staggered so about 300 homes enter and leave each month. Sampling technique is constantly refined so the sample of 5000 best reflects the composition of America as determined by the United States Census and other government organizations. The sampling is so sophisticated that each People Meter represents about 20,000 people. From that small sample comes out television ratings.
THIS WEB SITE MIGHT HELP:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/whatratingsmean/

Answer 4

they employ survey groups who have people who participate in the count at home. For example one survey group has the person viewing tv to switch on a button whenever they watch tv and then off when they are not watching. The survey group then collates the information electronically and gives it to the broadcaster. ACNeilsen does the TV ratings in Australia and many other surveys.

Whoops, just realised you are also asking for maths formula sorry. I don't know.

Answer 5

the satellite tells the channel how many viewers per show

Answer 6

LOL, Big Brother. Your 'Node' is known by the provider.