What can you tell me about the Nielson ratings?

Question

Do the Nieslon people just survey people's TV watching habits in order to figure out what shows are most popular or do they check on movies, too? We all hear about how the Nielson ratings say that this show is more popular than that show, etc. but does anyone know if they also look into who is watching what movies? And whether they phone you to ask about what movies you've seen, what upcoming movies you've heard of and what movies you plan to see or is it done by mail? Got a call like that yesterday, some women claiming to be calling from the Nielsons and asking about my movie viewing habits so I'm curious if it was on the level or not because the caller ID showed their number was blocked.

Answer 1

They have about 5000 "Nielsen family" homes whom they outfit with a meter on their TVs and/or they give them a diary to fill out what the family watches daily.

They base their estimates (of who's watching what and how many are actually watching) on the habits of these families. I'm not sure about the phone surveys though. It could be a new thing.. or not.

Answer 2

When the Nielson company asked me to do their survey
they sent me some paperwork and I had to fill out what I
watched every night; whether it be regular broadcast
shows, movies, sports, etc. So I would be a bit leery
about the woman on the phone.

Answer 3

Here is what their website says about it:
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We collect viewing information for both national and local programs — not only what's being viewed (tuning data), but also the composition of the audience (demographic data).

Daily household minute-by-minute viewing and tuning data, from both the national and local metered samples, is stored in the in-home metering system until it is automatically retrieved by our computers each night. Once the data is relayed via phone lines to our operations center in Oldsmar, Florida, it is processed that same night for release to the television industry the next day.

Television networks, stations, and third-party data providers give us information on program lineups, telling us what aired on each channel. This essential reference data helps us turn the raw tuning and viewing data into meaningful numbers for reporting.

To comprehend the dimension of our task, let's look at the numbers. We collect information from approximately 25,000 metered households starting at about 3 a.m. each day, process approximately 10 million viewing minutes a day, and make more than 4,000 gigabytes of data available for customer access the next day. In addition, we collect and process data from 1.6 million handwritten paper diaries from households across the country during sweep periods.

When the meter data is transmitted from the home to Nielsen, it is in raw code form. We then run a series of tests to ensure the integrity of this data.

If a problem is discovered, the system will flag the data from that household, analyze the problem, and determine the best course of action for correcting it. The solution may be as simple as calling the household to gather some information. In other instances, we may schedule a Nielsen field representative to visit the household and either repair or replace metering equipment, or re-coach the family members on usage of our equipment.

Once the data has been validated, our systems combine the transmitted and internal reference data to convert it to ratings information.

Answer 4

Nothing Im BLACK!! Our shoes never make the Nielson ratings!

Answer 5

Nielsen people hook up to your TV and monitor the programs you watch. you must give them permission first.

Answer 6

NOBODY KNOWS HOW THE DARN THINGS WORK..
THE SHOWS THEY HIGHLITE NOBODY WATCHES....