Inspired by this thread , how are ratings actually determined? How are they remotely accurate?
asked because I have NEVER been asked my opinion on a particular show
If they aren’t remotely accurate, why do we accept them as same? :mad:
If they are fixed, how can we fix?
The A.C. Nielsen Company is the leading source of ratings. It gathers ratings information in a couple of ways. There are “Nielsen families,” who have devices attached to their televisions which monitor the shows (IIRC every 15 minutes). There are also randomly selected people who recieve “diaries” in which they’re supposed to write down everything they watch for a certain time frame. The monitored people I think stay fairly constant over long time periods, and the diaries go out to different people constantly. Each rating point is equal to roughly 965,000 people if memory serves.
I was just a Nielsen family. They gave me $15 and a logbook. I pocketed the cash and threw the logbook away.
(Don’t worry, this was during the baseball playoffs, so all the shows I normally watch, like Arrested Development, had been preempted or were airing reruns.)
I feel a bit like I stuck it to the man.