Nielsen Media Research facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Nielsen Media Research

Formerly	ACNielsen
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Media research
Founded	1996; 29 years ago (1996)
Headquarters	85 Broad Street, New York City, New York , U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Services	Consumerization
Parent	Nielsen Holdings

Nielsen Media Research (often called Nielsen) is an American company that measures how many people watch or listen to different types of media. This includes TV shows, radio, movies, and even newspapers. Their main office is in New York City.

Nielsen is most famous for its Nielsen ratings. These ratings show how many people are watching TV and what they are watching. For many years, these ratings have helped TV networks decide if they should keep a show or cancel it. Since May 2012, Nielsen Media Research has been part of a bigger company called Nielsen Holdings.

Nielsen Media Research started as a part of ACNielsen, a company that did market research since 1923. In 1996, Nielsen Media Research became its own company. Later, in 1999, a Dutch company called VNU bought it. VNU also bought ACNielsen in 2001, bringing both companies back together. Nielsen Media Research also has a sister company, Nielsen//NetRatings, which measures how many people use the internet and other digital media. In 2007, VNU changed its name to Nielsen Company.

How Nielsen Started

Nielsen has been tracking TV audiences in the United States since the 1950s. They figure out which shows different groups of people watch. One well-known way they did this was with "diaries."

During special months called "sweeps" (February, May, July, and November), Nielsen would ask families to write down what TV programs they watched for one week.

In the early 1980s, Nielsen used about 1,700 special devices called audiometers in homes. They also had nearly 850 families who filled out diaries. In 1980, Nielsen started measuring cable TV, pay TV, and VCRs with something called the Nielsen Homevideo Index (NHI). By 1982, they were giving daily ratings for cable TV.

Nielsen kept improving its methods. Around 2003, they started focusing more on their sample groups to match changes in the population. They also brought in a new technology called the Local People Meter (LPM) in New York and Los Angeles. This LPM system was a big step forward. Instead of people actively writing things down or using simple meters, the LPM automatically tracked what was watched. This made measurements more accurate for specific local areas, not just the whole country. Because of LPM, TV measurement moved from quarterly "sweeps" to year-round tracking.

In 1996, Nielsen Media Research began tracking how people used computers, the internet, and video games. They did this through phone surveys. Nielsen Media Research is connected to Nielsen NetRatings, which measures internet and digital media use. They also work with Nielsen BuzzMetrics, which looks at what people say online. Nielsen also does research for the movie industry through National Research Group (NRG).

In September 2018, Nielsen bought SuperData Research. This company studied viewing habits in video games and eSports. Nielsen wanted to grow in this area. However, in April 2021, Nielsen decided to close SuperData and move its work into Nielsen Sports.

Since September 2020, Nielsen has also been making a weekly Top 10 list of the most-watched shows on streaming services.

Nielsen TV Ratings Explained

Nielsen TV ratings are systems used by Nielsen Media Research to figure out how many people watch TV shows in the United States. They also see what kind of audience a show has. In 2022, Nielsen lost its approval from the Media Rating Council (MRC) because of some data issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they got their approval back in April 2023.

Nielsen Media Research was started by Arthur C. Nielsen. He began his work in the 1920s by researching how well products sold. His company later started looking at radio audiences in the late 1930s. This led to the Nielsen Radio Index in 1942, which gave statistics about radio shows. The first Nielsen ratings for radio came out in December 1947. They showed the top 20 programs based on how many people listened.

In 1950, Nielsen started measuring TV audiences using similar methods. This system became the main way to understand TV viewership in America. In September 2020, Nielsen began making a weekly Top 10 list of the most-watched shows on streaming platforms.

How Ratings Are Measured

Nielsen has used different ways to collect data for TV ratings:

• The Audimeter was used in the early days of TV (starting in 1950). This device attached to a TV and recorded what channels were watched. It saved this information on a film cartridge, which was mailed to Nielsen each week. Families who agreed to have an Audimeter got free TV repair, which was a big deal back then!
• Paper "viewer diaries" were used starting in 1953. Families would write down what they watched or listened to. This helped Nielsen understand what different groups of people were watching, especially for local shows. As electronic ways of collecting data became better, Nielsen stopped using these paper diaries in June 2018.
• In 1971, the Storage Instantaneous Audimeter allowed TV viewing history to be sent to Nielsen electronically through a phone line. This meant Nielsen could get ratings overnight.
• The People Meter, introduced in 1987, records what each person in a home watches. It sends this data to Nielsen every night through a phone line. This system helps researchers see what people are watching minute-by-minute, even when they change channels.
• Nielsen later replaced People Meters with Portable People Meters (PPM). These collect data from individual family members using separate login details. This allows Nielsen to sort viewing information by different age groups and other categories.

New ways of watching TV have changed how Nielsen does its research. In 2005, Nielsen started measuring how people used digital video recorders (DVRs) like TiVo. At first, it seemed like watching shows later (time-shifted viewing) would greatly change TV ratings. However, advertisers were not ready to pay based on these new numbers.

In July 2017, Nielsen announced they would include some shows from streaming services like Hulu and YouTube TV in their ratings. Since October 2017, Nielsen also started tracking some shows from Netflix. Companies that partner with Nielsen add a special "tag" to their shows. Nielsen then tracks these tags using its meters. The partners decide if these ratings can be shared publicly.

Ratings, Share, and Viewers

Nielsen usually reports results using two main numbers: ratings points and share. For example, you might hear a show got a "4.4/8."

In the 2017–18 TV season, there were about 119.6 million TV homes in the U.S. (Nielsen calls this "Households Using Television," or HUT). Nielsen updates this number every August.

• The rating of a show is a percentage of all TV homes that are tuned in to that show.
• The share is the percentage of TV sets that are actually in use and tuned to a specific show at a certain time.

So, if a show gets a 4.4/8 rating:

• 4.4% of all TV-equipped homes were watching that show.
• 8% of homes that were watching TV at that time were watching that specific show.

Sometimes, a show might get a 0.0 rating, even if a few people are watching it. This happens because ratings are based on a sample of homes. For example, the show CW Now got two 0.0 ratings in one season. In 2014, Nielsen reported that Americans were watching less live TV (about 12 minutes less per day). This was because more people were watching shows later on DVRs or streaming videos online.

Where People Watch: Out of Home

In 2007, Nielsen started including data from people watching TV outside their homes. This also included college students living in dorms.

Audience Groups (Demographics)

Advertisers care about specific groups of people, like age, gender, or income. Nielsen provides statistics for these "demographics." For example, an advertiser might want to reach younger viewers, or wealthier audiences, or women.

Often, the number of viewers in the 18–49 age range is more important than the total number of viewers. For instance, in the 2007–08 season, ABC could charge $419,000 for a commercial during Grey's Anatomy. CBS only charged $248,000 for a commercial during CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, even though CSI had almost five million more viewers. This is because Grey's Anatomy was popular with the younger "demos" (demographic groups) that advertisers wanted to reach.

Commercial Ratings

Nielsen also provides data that shows how many people watch only the commercials within a program. These "Commercial Ratings" started in May 2007. Nielsen also offers different versions of this data, including how many people watched commercials up to seven days later (using DVRs).

One important measure is C3. This means the ratings for average commercial minutes in live TV, plus any playback from a digital video recorder up to three days later. By the end of 2012, some TV executives wanted to see C7 ratings, which include live viewing plus seven days of DVR playback. For example, the CEO of CBS said that C7 ratings could increase a show's numbers by 30%.

Sweeps Periods

Nielsen measures American TV in three main ways:

• In the 25 largest TV markets (like New York, Los Angeles), they use the Local People Meter (LPM). This system measures what individuals watch 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
• In 31 smaller markets (like Nashville), they use the SET Meter (Diary & Electronic). During four "sweeps" months (February, May, July, and November), people fill out diaries. This data is checked against what the meters record (TV on/off).
• In the 154 smallest TV markets, TV use is recorded only by diary surveys.

Until 2018, Nielsen processed about two million paper diaries each year during the "sweeps" rating periods (November, February, May, and July). The term "sweeps" started in 1954 because Nielsen collected diaries from the East Coast first, then "swept" across the country to the west. Families received seven-day diaries (or eight-day for DVR homes) to write down what was watched on each TV and by whom. At the end of the month, all the data from these diaries was combined.

These local viewing numbers help local TV stations, cable companies, and advertisers decide what programs to show and where to place ads. The November, February, and May sweeps are usually considered the most important.

The Rise of Streaming

Since September 2020, Nielsen has been publishing a weekly list of the top 10 most-watched TV shows on streaming platforms (like Netflix, Hulu, etc.). This quickly caught the attention of major media news outlets.

Most Watched TV Shows in the United States

The table below shows the TV series in the United States with the highest average household Nielsen rating for each TV season.

TV Network Ratings by Year

(Average number of viewers during prime time)

Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings

Since September 2020, Nielsen has been releasing a weekly list of the top 10 TV shows watched on streaming platforms. This has become very popular with media news companies like Variety and Hollywood Reporter.

See also

In Spanish: Nielsen Media Research para niños

• Automated Measurement of Lineups (AMOL)
• Media Market or Designated Market Area (DMA)
• C. E. Hooper
• Crossley ratings
• Nielsen Audio
• Top-rated United States television programs by season
• List of most watched television broadcasts in the United States
• List of most watched television broadcasts
• Wikipedia:List of U.S. television ratings archives