I teach an online course for UAB (go Blazers) titled “Copywriting Broadcast Media.”
One of my favorite topics is how ratings and shares are determined for radio and television stations. I learned from a website that in media and advertising businesses, few metrics are as important as ratings and shares.
“A Guide to Understanding and Using Portable People Meter Data for PPM Radio Ratings Customers” points out that “station” no longer refers just to what is being broadcast on AM/FM. In the PPM service, “station” can also refer to digital broadcasts, including HD radio, HD multicasts, and Internet streams.
Glenn Halbrooks’s article “Nielsen TV Ratings” points out that a rating is the estimate of the percentage of household audience watching a program, for example, “Meg Monet’s (a fictitious name) Show” has a household audience rating of 12 and means that the Nielsen Ratings Service has estimated that 12% of the market’s household audience is watching Miss Monet (Meg is a descendant of the French Impressionist painter on whose birthday I was born).
This week I’m quizzing you on ratings vocab.
1. Nielsen asks selected families to __ their viewing habits for a certain time period.
A. change
B. rate
C. localize
D. track
2. Which one is measured?
A. an individual who is watching
B. a home
C. a local television station
D. None of the above
No. 1 is track. As for No. 2, Nielsen measures homes, not people. If Vaughan’s Vocabulary became a TV show and has a household audience rating of 13, that means Nielsen has estimated that 13% of the market’s households is watching, that is, VV is on in 13% of the homes. One person may be watching in one home, whereas seven may be watching in another; the household measurement does not take the difference into account.
3. Which one will have the highest value?
A. rating
B. share
4. If Cher has a share of 30, then
A. her rating is 10% of 30.
B. 30% of people in the market are watching her.
C. that is the estimated percentage of how many households using televisions at the time are watching Cher.
D. All of the above
No. 3 is B because the market pie, as it were, is smaller after taking away homes not using TV at the time
No. 4 is C.
Editor’s Note: Don Rodney Vaughan, Ph.D., teaches journalism, interpersonal communication and public speaking at East Mississippi Community College and is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church in Webster County. Contact him at dvaughan@eastms.edu.
