How to the Tv industy measure how many people watch a tv programme?

Answer 1

Some people have boxes attached to their TV sets and their phones and information as to what they HAD ON is passed to the survey company by phone. Others fill in forms and others just get randomly phoned. Note there is always the difference between WATCHING a programme and just having it on, and this can't get quantified.

Answer 2

They have special boxes in a number of homes throughout the country, covering a wide cross sction of the population. when people watch the TV the box records the channel and length of viewing time and they calculate an average based on the type of people that have watched.

Now we have digital TV I'm sure they can be monitoring everyone and the figures are quite accurate.

Answer 3

Nominated families are monitored with equipment attached to their TV, and the viewing figures are extrapolated to the whole population.

Answer 4

The Neilson rateing electronically monitors how many people are watching any one show at any time.

Answer 5

Good question,I often wonder how they do all the TV poll,s i will be interested in the answers to this question..

Answer 6

they give some people a box that plugs into their tv, each one represents 5000 viewers

Answer 7

Think they pick so many homes for a survey and base it on that.

Answer 8

it makes me wonder how they get to these figures with sky plus and vid etc

Answer 9

Tee ALL TEEing eye

Answer 10

When TV viewers or entertainment professionals mention "ratings" they are generally referring to Nielsen Ratings, a system developed to determine the audience size and composition of television programming. Nielsen Ratings are offered in over forty countries.
Nielsen's ratings calculation measures the number of unique viewers or households tuned to a television program in a particular time period during a week. It is calculated by dividing the number of unique viewers or households by the total number of estimated available households/viewers/listeners possible.
The system has been updated and modified extensively since it was developed in the early 1960s by Arthur Nielsen and has since been the primary source of audience measurement information in the television industry around the world. Since television as a business makes money by selling audiences to advertisers, the Nielsen Television Ratings are the single most important element in determining advertising rates, schedules, and program content.
Nielsen Television Ratings are gathered by one of two ways;
by extensive use of surveys, where viewers of various demographics are asked to keep a written record (called a diary) of the television programming they watch throughout the day and evening, or by the use of Set Meters, which are small devices connected to every television in selected homes. These devices gather the viewing habits of the home and transmit the information nightly to Nielsen through a "Home Unit" connected to a phone line. Set Meter information allows market researchers to study television viewing habits on a minute to minute basis, seeing the exact moment viewers change channels or turn off their TV. In addition to this technology, the implementation of individual viewer reporting devices allow the company to separate household viewing information into various demographic groups. In 2005, Nielsen began measuring the usage of digital video recordings (TiVo, for example) and initial results indicate that time-shifted viewing will have a significant impact on television ratings.
Nielsen Television Ratings are reported by ranking the percentage for each show of all viewers watching television at a given time. As of September 2006, there are an estimated 111.4 million television households in the USA. A single national ratings point represents 1%, or 1,114,000 households for the 2006-07 season. Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to a specific program. These numbers are usually reported as (ratings points/share). For example, Nielsen may report a show as receiving a 9.2/15 during its broadcast, meaning 9.2%, or 10,138,400 households on average were tuned in at any given moment. Additionally, 15% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into this program. Nielsen re-estimates the number of households each August for the upcoming television season.
Nielsen Media Research also provides statistics on estimated total number of viewers, and on specific demographics. Advertising rates are influenced not only by the total number of viewers, but also by particular demographics, such as age, sex, economic class, and area. Younger viewers are considered more attractive for many products, whereas in some cases older and wealthier audiences are desired, or female audiences are desired over males. Television ratings are not an exact science, but they are a powerful force in determining the programming in an industry where millions of dollars are at stake every day.
Much of the ratings system, however, still consists of the completion by viewers of ratings diaries, in which a viewer records his or her viewing habits, generally for a week, in exchange for being advanced a nominal fee. These diaries play an especially important role during the four sweeps periods conducted in February, May, July and November in an attempt to measure smaller local market audiences in markets that are not covered by People Meter samples already. (Other, smaller sweeps are conducted through the year in the markets large enough to be measured by non-demographic meters, but not large enough to be measured by the demographic meters (people meters).)
The term "sweep" refers to how the diaries were handled by Nielsen Media when the ratings were first produced: They are mailed to the households and processed by starting on the East Coast and "sweeping" across the nation. Television networks and other programmers make unusual efforts to attract additional viewers during these periods, including airing mostly first-run programming as opposed to repeats, airing more special broadcasts, and including special content in programming such as guest stars, controversial and unexpected plots or topics, extended episodes, finales, and increased competition in advertising. Even news programs are often involved, airing especially controversial or titillating investigative reports and promotions. For this reason, the "sweeps" system of national ratings has been criticized as not representative of typical programming, and encouraging an increase in content of concern such as violence and explicit sexuality. Outside of these peak periods it is more common to see reruns of television programs.