Quote:
Originally Posted by oilers_fan
How are ratings calculated? Can they actually tell how many households are watching a program?
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Nielsen Television Ratings are gathered in one of two ways:
Viewer "diaries", in which a target audience self-records its viewing or listening habits.
A more technologically sophisticated system uses Set Meters, which are small devices connected to televisions in selected homes. These devices gather the viewing habits of the home and transmit the information nightly to Nielsen through a "Home Unit" connected to a phone line.
In Canada, BBM now uses pagers to track viewing habits. The pagers pick up audio signals that are embedded in the TV shows.