Know any Nielsen Families? Have them watch Firefly! by Penguin

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Know any Nielsen Families? Have them watch Firefly!

POSTED BY: PENGUIN
UPDATED: Friday, July 14, 2006 02:25
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Thursday, July 13, 2006 9:58 PM

What are Nielsen Families? Nielsen Families are people selected to help determine TV show ratings.

From Wikepedia..

Nielsen Television Ratings statistics are gathered in two ways: one is by extensive use of surveys, where viewers in various demographics are asked to keep a written record (called a diary) of the television programming they watch throughout the day and evening. The other is by the use of a limited number of Set Meters, which are small devices connected to all the televisions in a home. These devices electronically transmit the viewing activities of panelists and transmit these records nightly to Nielsen through a collection unit placed in the home. These Set Meters allow market researchers to study television viewing habits on a minute to minute basis, seeing the exact moment viewers change channels or turn off their TV. Additional use of direct reporting devices (called People meters) allow the company to break out household viewing information into various demographic groups.

Ratings/Share and total viewers

Nielsen Television Ratings are reported by ranking the percentage for each show of all viewers watching television at a given time. As of 2005, there are an estimated 110.2 million television households in the USA. A single national ratings point represents 1%, or 1,102,000 households for the 2005-06 season. Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to a specific program. These numbers are usually reported as (ratings points/share). For example, Nielsen may report a show as receiving a 9.2/15 during its broadcast, meaning 9.2%, or 10,138,400 households on average were tuned in at any given moment. Additionally, 15% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into this program. Nielsen re-estimates the number of households each August for the upcoming television season.

Nielsen Media Research also provides statistics on estimated total number of viewers, and on specific demographics. Advertising rates are influenced not only by the total number of viewers, but also by particular demographics, such as age, sex, economic class, and area. Younger viewers are considered more attractive for many products, whereas in some cases older and wealthier audiences are desired, or female audiences are desired over males. Television ratings are not an exact science, but they are a powerful force in determining the programming in an industry where millions of dollars are at stake every day.

Because ratings are based on samples, it is possible for shows to get 0.0 rating, despite having an audience; CNBC talk show McEnroe was one notable example.

If you know any Nielsen Families, have them turn their TVs to Firefly and/or write down Firefly in their Nielsen diaries!

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 10:02 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

how do we tell? I've never known anyone asked to keep a TV diary.
How do they pick these people?

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 10:06 PM

PENGUIN

From Nielsen...

Sampling the Population

Nielsen TV families are a cross-section of households from all over the United States. We carefully draw our samples in a way that offers every American household with a television an equal chance of being selected.

Sample design, selection, and maintenance for both the national and local market samples are the responsibility of highly-skilled statisticians — Nielsen's guardians of sample quality. They stay abreast of new sampling methods developed by survey organizations, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other government agencies.

Our samples include homes from all 50 states, from cities to towns, from suburbs to rural areas. We have homeowners and apartment dwellers — some with children and some without — across a broad range of demographic categories. We include people of all ages, income groups, geographic areas, ethnicities and educational levels — all in proportion to their presence in the population at large. Once homes are selected and agree to participate, we take great care to protect their identity and privacy, and no data about individuals or specific households are ever disclosed.

Can families volunteer to become a Nielsen home? While we'd like to accept volunteers in our panels, we are unable to do so. To include volunteers would violate basic laws of random sampling practice and skew our results. A truly representative sample of the population can only be generated using statistical methods of selection.

Selecting Households
Selecting a representative sample of homes is vital to collecting data that mirrors the population's viewing habits. We select households through one of two different methods: geographic selection (area probability sampling) in the national sample and larger markets, and randomly-generated telephone numbers (Total Telephone Frame) in smaller markets.

For area probability sampling, Nielsen's statistical research department begins with broad, U.S. Census-defined geographic areas. We dispatch field representatives to identify each and every housing unit in these areas, regardless of size or accessibility. Ultimately, we narrow the selection down to individual, randomly-selected housing units. Using this method, all households have an equal probability of selection into the sample. This allows for complete coverage of the country, since no homes are excluded by design.

For Total Telephone Frame sampling, Nielsen's statistical research department uses random digit-dialing to generate a call list that includes both published and unpublished telephone numbers in a Designated Market Area (DMA). Rather than using recordings, our Call Center staffs in Florida and Kentucky personally make multiple attempts to reach households, ensuring that they have a chance to be included in the sample.

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 10:07 PM

PENGUIN

Anything else??

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 10:11 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Well, there you go then. The people I know just aren't random enough. Or didn't want to take the trouble, who knows?
Wish I knew some

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Friday, July 14, 2006 1:29 AM

GUYWHOWANTSAFIREFLYOFHISOWN

wish my home had a neilson box thingy

then I would put both tvs on Firefly today

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php
-try it out, I dare you

98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature

I'm so into Firefly, my butt glows in the dark.

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Friday, July 14, 2006 2:25 AM

FOLLOWMAL

This is a great idea, Penguin, wish I knew someone who was a Nielsen family.

"You hold. Hold 'til I get back." Mal

Click here www.fireflyfans.net for info about the Serenity Summer Campaign and how you can help!

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