Page 441 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

0 | Rat ngs

1942—The A. C. Nielsen Company is established.
1949—ARB (later to become Arbitron) is established.
1963—Congress holds hearings investigating the integrity of ratings methodologies.
1964—The Broadcast Rating Council (later the Media Rating Council) is established by
the broadcast industry to oversee and certify ratings services.
1985—Audits of Great Britain introduces the first “people meter” in the United States in
an effort to compete with Nielsen.
1987—Nielsen launches its own people-meter service.
1988—Audits of Great Britain ceases operations in the United States.
1994—Congress holds hearings investigating Nielsen’s effectiveness in measuring
minority television audiences.
1999—Nielsen introduces the Local People Meter in Boston as a replacement to the
paper diaries used to measure local TV audiences.
2004—Congress holds hearings into allegations of racial misrepresentation in the Local
People Meter measurement system.
2007—After 15 years of testing and development, Arbitron officially launches its Portable
People Meter in Philadelphia, with four other large markets to follow soon after.
2007—Amidst substantial controversy and industry resistance, Nielsen introduces “com-
mercial ratings,” which report audience sizes for commercial breaks rather than for
individual programs.

Media Research (for television and the Web) and Arbitron (for radio). In addi-
tion to evaluating how well shows are performing, ratings also provide informa-
tion on the key characteristics of media audiences—such as their average age,
income, and their gender distribution, to name just a few of the demographic
characteristics that ratings firms measure these days.

sETTing aDvErTising raTEs
Advertisers use ratings data to decide where to advertise and how much they
are willing to spend. Media programmers use ratings data to decide how much
to charge advertisers, as well as to decide which television and radio programs
and Web sites to continue, and which ones to cancel. Ratings provide the ul-
timate measure of how programming is performing, and so survival depends
upon performing well in the ratings.
Different media have their ratings calculated differently, though always by
an independent third party responsible for providing independent and accurate
information that both advertisers and programmers can rely on. Television rat-
ings, for example, are provided in the United States by Nielsen Media Research.
Nielsen produces its national television ratings by installing electronic “people
meters” in a national sample of 10,000 television households. These house-
holds have agreed to have their viewing measured in exchange for a very small
payment from Nielsen. A meter is attached to each television set in the house.
Whenever a household member sits down to watch television, she or he must