# How do radio/tv stations count viewers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742 "2006-09-30T15:52:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Surbey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/1 "2006-09-30T15:52:07Z")
How do they do it? I’ve always wanted to know. ---
**Author:** ![britboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/59ef9b/32.png) [@britboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/britboy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/2 "2006-09-30T15:55:51Z")
[QUOTE=Surbey] How do they do it? I’ve always wanted to know. [/QUOTE] Here in the UK at least, a representative sample of families is chosen to have some monitoring equipment installed. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/3 "2006-09-30T16:03:38Z")
Nielsen ratings for TV and Arbitron ratings for radio. The link below explains how Nielsen ratings work: > **[Nielsen Media Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Ratings)** > > Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen ratings, an audience measurement system of television viewership that has long been the deciding factor in canceling or renewing television shows by television networks. As of August 2024, it is the primary part of Nielsen Holdings. NMR began as a division o... > [@](#): > > Nielsen Television Ratings statistics are gathered in two ways: one is by extensive use of surveys, where viewers in various demographics are asked to keep a written record (called a diary) of the television programming they watch throughout the day and evening. The other is by the use of a limited number of Set Meters, which are small devices connected to all the televisions in a home. These devices electronically transmit the viewing activities of panelists and transmit these records nightly to Nielsen through a collection unit placed in the home. These Set Meters allow 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. Additional use of direct reporting devices (called People meters) allow the company to break out household viewing information into various demographic groups. > **[Nielsen Audio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitron_ratings)** > > Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau in Beltsville, Maryland, by Jim Seiler in 1949 and went national by merging with Los Angeles-based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company's first business was the collection of broadcast television ratings. The company changed its name to Arbitron in the mid‑1960s, the namesake of the Arb... > [@](#): > > Arbitron is a radio audience research company in the United States. It collects data on radio audiences similar to the data collected by Nielsen Media Research on television audiences. > > Arbitron collects data by selecting a random sample of the population to maintain a written diary describing what radio programs they have listened to. For each selected household that agrees to participate, Arbitron sends a diary for each member of the household age 12 or older. Each person maintains a diary for one week, typically starting on a Thursday and ending the following Wednesday. At the end of the week, the diaries are mailed back to Arbitron. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/4 "2006-09-30T16:11:52Z")
For radio, the main system depends almost exclusively on diary entries. Arbitron basically sends weekly logbooks to random households (taking demographics of the region into consideration) in the target audience. There targetees need to keep track of their listening habits and return the diary at the end of the listening period. I think they get a check for $5 if the participate. There is (or perhaps was, haven’t been in the business for a while) another survey method run by Birch which relies on telephoning homes and asking questions; obviously the stations who do well in the phone survey prefer to tout numbers from the Birch measurement, but Birch is taken less seriously because (1) it is neweer, and (2) it tends to skew younger (younger people in general are more likely to participate in phone surveys. For the more-respected Arbitron, use of the diaries has led to some change on the part of radio format. Ever wonder why most radio contests are done on Thursday? That’s the day of the week the diaries usually arrive in homes. At one station I worked at, the GM requested we tell listeners the time between songs only once every 20 minutes, preferably during the times between 20 and 25 past the hourm, 35 and 40 past, and 50 and 55 past. The reason for this is if a diary entry says the listener has the radio on for at least five minutes in a quarter hour, the station got credit for the entire quarter hour. So if you write “listened to WXXX, 9:00 to 9:20”, the station got credit for 30 minutes of listener time. Yes, it is that crazy. I met a fellow once who was a radio network programmer. He told our staff about a visit he made to Arbitron offices in Maryland (?) and pretty much summarized the process as a complete and utter crapshoot; it’s amazing they get any credible numbers out of it. Still, that’s what local advertisers use to set rates, so you have to treat them like gold and never, ever get caught gaming the system (there were specific rules about mentioning ratings on-air; one local station raised a ruckus when they started using a slogan like “66.6 FM WXXX; write it down”. Some saw “write it down” as a forbidden call to specific diary holders and complained to Arbitron, but I don’t think anything came of it). TV is similar with respect to diaries, but I understand Nielsen also uses devices attached to the TV itself in sample households to get more accurate numbers (I think it’s 1 metered household per 100,000, but don’t quote me on that). During sweeps (November, February, May), the same metering is done on the local level, rather than just the national. Networks basically stunt during sweeps to ensure better local ratings for their affiliates, but will of course take any opportunity to crow about national “wins” during sweeps months, even though they’re similarly metered nationally for 3/4 of the year anyway. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/5 "2006-09-30T16:26:44Z")
Broadcast outlets pay Nielsen for the service. There are different tiers of ratings. Smaller markets may just get reports during “sweeps,” May, November, with less important sweeps of February and July, while the networks in the larger markets (New York, LA) may pay for overnights, meaning they find out the next day how their primetime programming did from the night before. It’s this quick turnaround, especially for the networks, which can cause new shows to be yanked off the air in a matter of weeks after airing only two or three times. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/6 "2006-09-30T16:41:12Z")
Anyone know how (or if) Neilsen deals with Tivo, OnDemand and plain ol’ VCRs? We hardly ever watch anything live these days - even if we want to watch \*Lost \*when it’s on, we’ll tune in 15 minutes after it starts and watch it through the saved OnDemand feature, so we can skip the commercials. Most shows we don’t even watch the same night they’re on. Would we be entirely useless to Neilsen because of this? Do networks and advertisers even care about people who watch a show at a different time? I suppose most ad agencies would think we’re not worth it, skipping all those commercials, but we actually do watch some, out of choice - we love the Mac/PC ads, and I’ve absorbed enough of that Audrey Hepburn Gap abomination to know how horrid it is, even on fast forward. (Hey, I wonder if anyone’s thought of making an ad really slow, so that when fast-forwarded, you get the message anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/7 "2006-09-30T19:34:49Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Anyone know how (or if) Neilsen deals with Tivo, OnDemand and plain ol’ VCRs? We hardly ever watch anything live these days - even if we want to watch \*Lost \*when it’s on, we’ll tune in 15 minutes after it starts and watch it through the saved OnDemand feature, so we can skip the commercials. Most shows we don’t even watch the same night they’re on. Would we be entirely useless to Neilsen because of this? Do networks and advertisers even care about people who watch a show at a different time? I suppose most ad agencies would think we’re not worth it, skipping all those commercials, but we actually do watch some, out of choice - we love the Mac/PC ads, and I’ve absorbed enough of that Audrey Hepburn Gap abomination to know how horrid it is, even on fast forward. (Hey, I wonder if anyone’s thought of making an ad really slow, so that when fast-forwarded, you get the message anyway.) [/QUOTE] This information is absolutely fascinating to advertisers. For example, if most viewers watch, say, _Lost_ through On Demand services, an advertiser may choose to sponsor the on-demand version instead of, or in addition to, the live version. An increase in TiVo or DVR use for some shows might be followed by an increase in product-placement advertising; advertising pays for the show, after all, and if you’re not watching the commercials, you’re going to see advertising during the shows themselves. Or the commercials might be made differently so you’re forced to get the message anyway. I did ask someone who knows about TV, and he said that there isn’t a way to measure DVR usage beyond directly surveying users and looking at TiVo and DVR sales rates. It is possible for cable and satellite providers to measure what viewers watch, but there have been privacy concerns about that. Robin ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/8 "2006-09-30T22:43:29Z")
Nielsen is starting to offer another version of reporting, the real time vs. the delay, but until the advertising agencies request it from the broadcast outlets, the broadcast outlets aren’t going to ask for it from Nielsen. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/9 "2006-10-01T04:30:44Z")
I just find it hard to believe that the manual diary method produces an accurate record anymore. In TV, given the use of remote controls, viewers commonly switch channels very often (men especially). And in car radios, it’s common for people to punch a button to switch stations every time a commercial comes on. Sometimes several buttons to find one that isn’t running a commercial. I just can’t see people actually writinmg down all these channel changes in a diary. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/10 "2006-10-01T05:54:30Z")
Yep, Nielson. Basically it is a polling operation. Some of it is automated, but they also ask you to do diaries, so they know how many family memebers were watching what show, not just what channel the tube was tuned to. They are very pushy. I flat out told them I wouldn’t participate, as I felt it was my duty to lower the reliability of thier data by self-selecting out of thier sample. Still called me a half dozen more times working thier way up the chain of command. AND sent me the diary and reminder letters anyway. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-radio-tv-stations-count-viewers/374742/11 "2006-10-01T15:35:34Z")
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net] I just find it hard to believe that the manual diary method produces an accurate record anymore. [/QUOTE] No, they’re not very reliable. You’ll get people who don’t want to admit that they watch WWF Wrestling, so they’ll write down that they watched Masterpiece Theater on PBS instead.