Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo
But it still comes down to exactly how the people meters work. Video Research samples 66,000 households around Japan, using directly connected people meters and meters that work through computers (from the TV), as well as hand-recorded diaries. I'm not sure if metered people also fill out diaries.
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Generally metered people do not fill out diaries - the diaries are for supplemental information (in the US, they're generally only used in sweeps week).
The "people meter" is a device that was introduced by Nielsen which basically allows you to mark that you are "watching" a show - so rather than just knowing the household, they also know which people in the household are watching. Generally speaking I cannot imagine the meters Video Research uses are significantly different than other meters. If so, Nielsen meters check three things.
1) The state of the TV (off, on, time, etc)
2) what channel is currently tuned in
3) who is watching it (who is logged into the meter at that time)
All of this can be found at the Nielsen site (the Video Research site seems sort of secretive about the meters - at least the English site is, but I doubt it is significantly different).
Again though, any rating company will tell you (Nielsen says it right on the
"Inside the ratings" link) they're not rating popularity. There is no way to use ratings to cover that. All it can show you is who's watching. I watch five to seven television shows each week (well, if I get to count the [adult swim] airing of Bleach
) - each show counts equally in the ratings; however, some of those shows I only watch so I have something to talk about at work, or because my wife watches it, or because of other reasons. If you asked me, I could tell you which shows I liked better - but there is no way for the meter to tell that.
The best way to find out if something is popular is to take a poll. Yes, polls have problems, but ratings do not show popularity any better. In a lot of ways DVD sales are the better indicator of popularity. DVDs are in "competition" with all other DVDs, but broadcast television shows are only in "competition" with other shows that are broadcast at the same time.
I'm not trying to minimize Kaoru's point. It's very impressive that Nana has a high rating late at night, and looking at ratings is always interesting, but there is very much an apples and oranges effect that goes on when this kind of discussion happens. Including DVR numbers one way or the other, does not significantly fix the underlying problem of assuming ratings = popularity.