TV Show Ratings
The number of people that watch a certain TV program at a particular time is measured by TV ratings. These are used to figure out what types of people watch certain programs, which is then used by the networks to compute the price for the advertisers spot. TV ratings tend to be accurate because they are calculated very specifically. There are two methods that the Nielsen company uses to gather TV ratings. One is by giving diaries TV viewers who participate during “sweeps” months, four times a year for a small amount of compensation. When the participant agrees to fill out the diary, the company takes down the demographic factors that include age, income, location, number of viewers in the household and how many televisions are in the home. The programs they view are recorded for a period of usually a week and the viewer mails the information back to