I have a confession I love TV!

When I'm not working are busy doing school work, you can catch me on the couch watching some of my favorite show. 90 Day Fiancé, Empire, Star, Good Times and the list goes on. Did you know though while you are watching your favorite television shows, there is a system that shows how many viewers are calculating how many people are watching television programs that are on today?

This system is called Nielsen Rating.

Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems operated by Nielsen Media Research that seek to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States using a rating system.

Nielsen Media Research was founded by Arthur C. Nielsen, a market analyst whose career had begun in the 1920s with brand advertising analysis and had expanded into radio market analysis during the 1930s, culminating in Nielsen ratings of radio programming, which was meant to provide statistics as to the markets of radio shows. The first Nielsen ratings for radio programs were released the first week of December 1947. They measured the top 20 programs in four areas: total audience, average audience, cumulative audience and homes per dollar spent for time and talent.

In 1950, Nielsen moved to television, developing a ratings system using the methods he and his company had developed for radio. That method became the primary source of audience measurement information in the television industry.

Here are some interesting facts about television and how the Nilsen Ratings helped:

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   The year it debuted, “Cheers” was dead last in the ratings: 77 out of 100 shows. Twelve years later, it ended with the 22nd highest rated show in the history of television. 84 million people watched the finale. That’s more than twice the viewers of the highest rated episode of “American Idol” of all time (36 million viewers).

·         The last The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was seen by 50 million people. Jay Leno’s last The Tonight Show before Conan O’Brien took over in 2009 was seen by 9 million people.

·         Among 18-49ers, reruns of Big Bang Theory on TBS average better ratings than the average number of viewers for first runs of NBC’s Thursday night sitcoms.

·         In 1995, when Jurassic Park debuted on television, 68 million people watched it on NBC. That’s more viewers than any Oscar telecast has ever received. However, it’s not the most watched theatrical movie on television of the last 30 years. That title belongs to the 1987 broadcast of Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places.

·         In the 18-49 demo, Conan O’Brien’s last “Tonight Show” episode scored better (4.8) than Leno’s last “Tonight Show” before being replaced by O’Brien (3.4). Right now, Leno’s ratings average around .9 in the 18-49 demo. Believe it or not, however, Last Call with Carson Daly — which comes on NBC after Late Night with Jimmy Fallon now has around the same number of viewers that Conan does on TBS (900,000).

·         In the 18-49 demo, Conan O’Brien’s last “Tonight Show” episode scored better (4.8) than Leno’s last “Tonight Show” before being replaced by O’Brien (3.4). Right now, Leno’s ratings average around .9 in the 18-49 demo. Believe it or not, however, Last Call with Carson Daly — which comes on NBC after Late Night with Jimmy Fallon now has around the same number of viewers that Conan does on TBS (900,000).

·         More people watched “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld the first time it was re-aired than the COMBINED number of viewers who watch THE ENTIRE weekly schedule on The CW today. That’s right: One rerun received more viewers in 1992 than an entire network receives in a week now.

This information is amazing. During these weeks reading I also came across an article that really broke the Nilsen Ratings down. The article is entitled “7 Things You Need to Know About the Nielsen’s New Tool”. In this article I learned 7 valuable things. They are:

1.      The Sampler Gets Bigger

In January, the first big change comes when Nielsen integrates its new enlarged sample into its ratings numbers. The sample jumps to 100,000 people in 40,000 homes from 25,000 homes currently. That change alone will have a significant impact on ratings, pushing some networks higher and other networks lower. Clarken says programmers are well aware of the effect the larger sample will have: “They’ve all seen the data. They’ve had that data in their hands for 12 months, so for those who have had upward or downward changes, they know what that represents. They know what that looks like and they know the reasons why.”

2.      Panel Still the ‘Source of Truth’

While some clamor for using the big data available from set-top boxes to create more accurate TV audience measurement, Nielsen stands by using its tried-and-true panel as the ratings foundation. “The TV panel is still the underlying source of truth. It’s the check and balance for every piece of data we get,” Clark says. A TV set, by comparison, “is a dumb device. Until a TV set is able to identify itself and give you a data set that identifies its relationship to everybody in the home, you can’t do it.” Set-top box data also flows with the volume of a fire hose and whether the TV set is on or off, she adds. For each cable operator, even a giant like Comcast, set-top box data is representative only of that operator’s footprint. Nielsen says it does get census-level data from some digital viewing. But it is not practical to try to measure TV based on a digital methodology. “You can’t start from digital and tack on TV. You have to start from TV