how do they know how many people watched a television programme?

Answer 1

Its called the Neilson ratings. There are people out there, who are chosen at random and receive a monthly paycheck. These several thousand people represent us all. What they watched is tallied by the Neilson Box and thats where they get the ratings from.

Answer 2

In UK the figures are compiled by the BARB, Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. Four research companies share the contract. They meter a panel of 5100 people, representative of the UK population with equipment fitted in the home, using the CTS Content Tracking System and the Sky info. is taken at source from the boxes, even to the extent of logging replays via the Sky+ boxes.http://www.barb.co.uk/news.cfm?fullstory=true&newsid=53&flag=news.
The figures aren't available to the general population. Companies and organisations pay subscriptions to access them.

In the US, it's Neilsons who monitor 7,100 households in a similar way. http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/2/keefer-nielsen.asp

These research companies know how many people are watching as the viewers in a household each have to press a button to show they're watching.

Answer 3

Nielsen Media Research randomly selects households to participate in the ratings in one of two ways. The first is participation in the nationwide overnight ratings. Nielsen will give your household People Meters, which track which channels are on. Members of the household have to check in with the box. At night, Nielsen collects the data via modem (Nielsen pays for the equipment).

The second rating system, for the four sweeps periods, is less invasive, but more involved for members of the household. Each television set has a diary assigned to it. Members of the household must write down which programs they watched and at what times. They must also write down when the television was on but nobody was watching.

The four sweeps periods are February, May, July, and November. Sweeps periods are for network affiliates of small markets. The largest markets are moving toward People Meters.

A sweeps diary household participates for one week only.

In any event, Nielsen contacts you to participate. If you agree, you get $1 per television set for your time.

Because households are chosen randomly, Nielsen need sample only a small number and uses statistics to estimate the actual size of the viewing audience.

Answer 4

A lot of carefuul chosen homes will have an electronic device which tell the prog makers how many times a program is watched. families are asked to do this which might be called average people. All viewing is then worked out to get a general idea of what we all would watch.

Answer 5

Very good question, to say it's a guess is an understatement. The power surges come into play, but then you are guessing that for every kettle switched on during commercial, 3/4/5 people live there!!

Answer 6

They don't actually know how many PEOPLE watched, they only know how many TELEVISIONS were tuned in. Any number of people could have been watching one telly, but the number of televisions watching them is recorded somehow, presumably on their computer.

Answer 7

One way ratings company do it is by surveys. Different types of surveys could be as simple as keeping weekly or monthly logs or by telephone. As I recall the Neilson ratings is conducted by randomly (random is important) surveying as few as 1000 people. The results are then projected over the entire population.

Answer 8

Its something to do with Electricity surges at the commercial break and end of the shows i believe

Answer 9

It's an estimate from all those rating boxes out there

Answer 10

from audience feed back and voting,or either u r thrown out of ur program for less user participation