Nielsen: Counting The Few

"Q: It seems as if every TV show we enjoy and look forward to goes off the air due to low ratings. Could you explain how ratings are obtained? We have never been contacted by phone or any other medium as to what we are watching and are longtime viewers.

A: Ratings are based on the viewing habits of a sample of the audience. For the more than 111 million TV homes in the United States, Nielsen uses about 25,000 homes with meters to determine day-to-day ratings and about 1.6 million homes filling in diaries during ratings ''sweeps,'' the major measurement periods for local TV stations. Nielsen tries to select homes that, as a group, represent the entire population in terms of age and other factors, but there have been many criticisms over the years of the validity of that sample."



Most recorded based on TiVo numbers:
# 14- Jericho

Moved up 10 spots. See here.



Another Big Nielsen Error here.




Speaking of validity I found this at CBS:

"I have read in other posts that not all the CBS affiliates aired the repeat showing on Saturday."

Yes, this happened back during the summer too.