Viewing figures

[Numptie]

The TV channels quote figures for how many people viewed a particular program.

How do they know?

It seems to be particularly prevalent at Christmas (like X million watched Eastenders and Y million watched Coronation Street).

I seem to remember someone telling me it was an estimate made from a number of factors; like a sample group and demand on the national grid as kettles are switched on. I suspect there may be a more high-tech and / or simple answer.

Cheers,

N

[docevi1]

with the new sky it's easy as they report viewing stats back via your telephone line at night. I have a feeling terrestial/digitial is nothing more impressive.

[forever_driving]

I seem to recall that the way they figure out terrestrial TV viewing figures is...

There are 30,000 families in the UK with a little box on top of the TV that is constantly monitoring what channel their watching and how long they watch for; this little box reports back to HQ. The viewing figures it gives are then multiplied by a number (around about 2000) to scale the viewing figures up for the entire population.

Or something like that... I'm really not sure.

[FourWheelDrift]

Numptie said:

I seem to remember someone telling me it was an estimate made from a number of factors; like a sample group and demand on the national grid as kettles are switched on.

I heard that once, complete garbage even if they do use it as an example. Oh wow 15 million people must watch Coronation St as when it finishes at 8pm there's a massive surge as they all put their kettles on Or maybe it's just lots of people turning their lights on as it gets quite dark at 8pm. Or maybe it 15 million people turning their TV's on to watch something on BBC1 or Channel 4.

Just like all polls, surveys and viewing tv figures it's all crap.

[_dan_]

Have a look HERE. Basically a percentage of the population have an extra set top box which records who and what a household are watching.

Then it's just multiplied to get the average ratings for the whole population.

Also as mentioned above, with Sky and Cable it's easy for them to find out.