Nielsen Ratings:

The Reason Your Favorite Shows Get Cancelled

Who is this for?
We all watch TV, let face it, its Americas favorite past time. Do you ever
wonder why your favorite TV show was cancelled, seemingly out of nowhere?
It was the best thing since sliced bread after all! Most people have a basic
understanding of why a show would get cancelled- not enough people tuned
in, but the process is more complicated than that. This brochure is meant for
you- the average TV consumer, so that you can have some peace of mind
knowing why Firefly was cancelled 8 years ago and the process in which TV
audiences are measured.

Who is Nielsen?
The Nielsen Corporation is a global marketing and research firm that
measures consumer behavior. They do this by monitoring what kinds of
programming and advertisements you watch and the brands and products
you purchase. However, you can rest easy knowing they gather this data
from people who volunteer, its nothing like NSA surveillance. They are most
synonymous with television because they invented the system for TV ratings
measurement.

What are ratings?

The biggest thing to understand about TV is that it lives and dies by ratings.
Ratings simply refer to the number of households in the entire universe that
are tuned into any program at a given time. They are always presented as a
percentage. Its easy to remember it with this formula:

Ratings = (Number of viewers/ all possible viewers)

Shows are renewed and cancelled based off them and it is a game of the
survival of the fittest. This is because advertisers pay to air their targeted
commercials based off that data. They also help fund the networks, and
hence your shows. The actual ratings themselves are generally based upon
two categories: total viewers and demographics. Demographics or Demos
being significantly more important. The key demos measured are 25-54 and
18-49. The numbers indicate an age range and category, 25-54 for news and
18-49 for entertainment and sports. Advertisers target these age groups on
specific channels and air commercials they believe to be relevant to them. If
there isnt enough people in those demos tuning into a TV show, this is seen
as a loss to the advertiser who in turn wont want to contribute to the
network that produces the show. This weighs heavily in the decision on
renewals and cancellation, especially with the big five networks: Fox, ABC,
NBC, CBS and The CW.
Shares are also a key part of ratings. The share represents the percent of
Households Using Television (HUT) or Persons Using Televisions (PUT) tuned
into a specific program, on a specific network at a specific time. You can
easily remember this way:

Share = (Number of viewers/

Total Number of TV watchers)
Lets go back to Firefly for an example.
This is a show that had great critic reviews
and widespread critical acclaim back when
it came out in 2002. It has since become a
cult-hit in the eyes of many. It got
cancelled after one season because it was
severely underperforming in the key 18-49
demo. It just goes to show, you can have a
quality show, but if it doesnt perform in
the demo, its space dust.

The figure to the left shows a ratings table that is published daily from
TVBytheNumbers.com. As you can see, the show, network, time it aired,
demo and total viewership in millions is shown. The ratings/share together is
the complete demo. So, take Modern Family for example, it has a 1.2/4
meaning 1.2 percent of all TVs that on, of all TVs were tuned in watching
something at this time, but 4 percent of that was tuned in specifically to
Modern Family.

The ratings that networks care about most about

are
the results that show Live + same day. This
means how many people watched live
and how many watched a program
within 24 hours via devices such as
DVR/TiVO. Many advertisers buy ads
based on Live + 3 Day DVR as
well. The
norm networks want to move
towards is Live
+ 7 (a week). Many shows
have significant
viewership increase after it aired. This is
likely due to people
being unable to watch live. These new
measurement
standards may allow shows a better
chance at surviving.
At this time websites viewing from
services such as Hulu or even
the networks online show sites are not counted in these numbers, but
methods are being developed to allow this.

How are they measured?

Now that you know what ratings are, how are the collected? There are two
main methods: People Meters and Diaries.
People Meters
In order to gather data on what people are watching, around 15-50K
households across the country are asked to volunteer to become Nielsen
homes. These households (not individual people) become part of a
representative sample of the estimated 100 million households that have TVs
in the US. Small meters called black-boxes (shown above) are given to
each one of these households. Each family member in that house is assigned
a button on the device that allows them to switch on when they begin to
watch a program and turn off when they finish. Every night this information
is recorded and sent to the databases to become part of the national sample.
People meters dont account for every single person watching a program. It
doesnt account for large groups gatherings; people watching the game
together in a bar, people watching the news in a crowded airport, etc.., This
is the biggest downfall of the system. More people are ALWAYS watching a
program than is actually reported.
People Diaries

Another, less common way that Nielsen collects viewership data is by

conducting old fashion phone calls and asking people what they watch. This
may seem like an outdated practice given they have machines that give
them that data, but it serves as a form of quality control. Nielsen can back up
their data with spoken confirmation, which makes the data that much
stronger for both the networks and advertisers.

Wrap- Up
The television industry is a complex machine; it has lots of gears working
behind the scenes that you may not have realized before. The hope of this
brochure was to help you understand that ratings are KEY to a shows
success. Nielsen collects these ratings by monitoring what volunteers around
the country are watching and creates a national sample from it. Then they
sell this information to advertisers who target commercials for people of
certain demographics.
The advertisers fuel the TV industry because they help fund the networks.
Try to remember all of this next time your favorite show gets cancelled, dont
take it personally, its just business.

Works Cited
"How Do Television Ratings Work?" HowStuffWorks. InfoSpace LLC, 28 July
2000. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
Krakauer, Steve. "You Likely Have No Idea How TV Ratings Work - A Lot More
People Are Watching Than You Think - Autonomous Magazine."
Medium. Autonomous Magazine, 05 Aug. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
"The Nielsen Conundrum: Why An Entire Nation of TV Addicts Are Being Held
Hostage By 16,000 Viewers." The TV Addict. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar.
2016.
Porter, Rick. "TV Ratings Wednesday: Survivor and Voice Clip Show Lead,
Carmichael on Par with Summer Numbers." TvByTheNumbers. Tribune
Broadcasting, 10 Mar. 2016`. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
"Television Measurement." Nielsen.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

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