Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob29
How do they calculate how many watch? No one has ever asked me what I see--had satelite TV since 1989-must be over 200 channels on EPG-think I did watch Quest once
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Some people have special boxes attached to their TVs, which monitor what is being watched and by whom. These boxes feed back results on a daily basis to create what are known as "overnight ratings". They give minute by minute numbers, as well as programme averages, five minute averages and fifteen minute averages. They have a margin of error of around 2%.
In addition, there's a much larger group who keep diaries of what they watch. These are collected weekly and the data is added to the overnights to produce "consolidated ratings". Because the sample size is four times greater, these have a slightly lower margin of error, however I believe they are only accurate to five minutes, not minute by minute.