How do TV networks find out their ratings?

TV Ratings How does it work?

• I was recently trying to seach the net for Supernatural tv ratings in the uk, I wanted to check that if moving from itv2 to living managed to get more or less ratings, I could only find the usa ratings. Then I started wondering how they can actually confirm how many people watched this, my partner says it would be simple with sky as because its all connected which is may be true or not but my partner is known for telling porkies to look good especially when it comes to things I dont know, he has admitted to telling me rubbish lol. So if what he says is true then how does the networks get ratings for peeps with analogue and digital tv?. I am really confused about this so if anyone knows please get in touch, I also have a questions out there about supernatural ratings, if anyone does know the uk ratings for the premier on season 5 or anyother episode in season 5 please help out with that to. Thanks very much Sam xx

• Answer:

  They don't know for sure, TV ratings are just an estimate. A select number of people (families) participate in a daily study of their TV watching habits. The participants are carefully selected to best represent the general population. Devices are installed on these participant's TVs/set-top boxes which monitor when the TV is on and what channel it is tuned to. Each family member is given their own remote with a check-in and a check-out button. Every time they sit down to watch a program they check-in and every time they leave, they check-out. Every night the monitoring device on the TV communicates back the TV usage habits of the household family members. Since each family member has their own personal remote, the monitoring device can keep track of what family members watch based on demographic and sometimes socioeconomic status (which is what advertisers want to know). For example you could find out what programs upper-middle class teenage boys like to watch at night, or what programs 50 year old housewives watch during the day, and what programs attract the entire family audience. For the most part the ratings give a reasonable guess as to how many people actually watched the program, but there is always room for error, sometimes significant error. If the sample that is used is not representative of the population, the results can be skewed in one direction over another. Sometimes it is hard to produce a good sample because some differences in TV watching habits may be attributed to unknown variations in background and personality (e.g. how emotional you are) rather than demographics which are known facts (e.g. how old you are). Another example is that some families might be very family-oriented where everyone watches every show together where other families might be more individualistic and isolated where each family member does and watches whatever they want. Here is an example of how the ratings can be skewed. Lets say there is a daily soap opera that has very poor viewership, but the ratings indicate that the show is doing very well. This could happen if the study sample has an unusually high number of emotional woman who enjoy romantic comedies and dramas. In the same way, if the study sample is filled with an unusually high number of sport fanatics, you will find that sporting events will tend to have an inflated rating over other general programming which may suffer in apparent viewership counts. There are also problems because people will naturally change their behaviour if they know they are being observed. You may find that some participants will intentionally not watch a program because they don't want other people to know they watch that show and just the thought of the monitoring device puts them off. Another example may be an over-interest in watching a program that the participant would not normally watch simply because they are being monitored (for e.g. they know they are representing everyone else so they feel they must conform to whatever they *think* other people watch - even if that's not what other people really watch). The UK doesn't have as comprehensive a rating system for TV shows as the U.S., or at least the data does not seem to be very well publicized if it does. However, here is some rating data for a few of the main channels: http://www.free-satellite-tv.co.uk/tv-ratings/index.htm