How does the media know how many people are watching?

B

bill

New member
Once a month you see the reports that detail in the 8pm time slot Fox's Bill O'Reilly dominated with viewership of 3.5m where MSNBC and CNN had a paultry 600k and 500k respectively. How do they know this?
I assume that digital cable boxes can tell what a TV is tuned to but what about the people who get their TV from the airwaves, dish, directTV, etc.

How can they post specific numbers or is it just the ones that's are quantifiable and the numbers could be higher?

Any broadcast specialists out there??
 
To calculate ratings, they give random people these digital boxes that allows them to see what they're watching. They determine ratings from a sample population. They don't know that 3.5 million people are actually watching it. It's just a statistic, based on the amount of people who watch it in the sample.
 
To calculate ratings, they give random people these digital boxes that allows them to see what they're watching. They determine ratings from a sample population. They don't know that 3.5 million people are actually watching it. It's just a statistic, based on the amount of people who watch it in the sample.
 
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