I’ve noticed that networks are always proud of how many people were watching their shows, as shown by the Nielsen ratings. Who is Nielsen, and how is he counting the 7.8 million people who were watching the latest reality show? How do they figure out what I’m watching? I have a feeling they ask a few hundred thousand people what they were watching, and just say that therefore, statistically, x number of people must’ve been watching.
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You’re one sharp cookie, Joe. Yes, Nielsen ratings are based on a representative sample–they don’t ask everybody in the country. The sample size isn’t a few hundred thousand people, though–for daily ratings, called “overnights,” it’s just 25,000 homes (5,000 for national programming, 20,000 for local stations), which collectively are supposed to reflect the viewing habits of 106 million U.S. households in 210 markets. That leaves a pretty wide margin for error, you might think–and you wouldn’t be the only one. Nielsen Media Research, an offspring of the firm founded in 1923 by market research pioneer Arthur Nielsen, recently began introducing new sampling technology that it hopes will depict local TV viewership with much greater accuracy. Early results have been controversial, mainly because, in highly simplified terms, they consist of the following:
A: No.
Advertisers found this news interesting, to say the least; broadcast TV executives choked. Network affiliates in Boston have been slow to sign up for LPM-based ratings, but they don’t have much choice–the old meter/diary system has been discontinued there. Other cities will get LPMs soon. More innovations are in the offing, notably Portable People Meters (PPMs), pagerlike devices that record whatever TV, radio, or streaming Internet programs surveyees watch or listen to, wherever they may be. PPM tests to date have shown higher TV-viewing rates than older methods did, not lower. For now, though, I like to imagine the missing 8 percent are taking a nap, playing with the kids, or reading a good book.
