CASE STUDY Rating Television Shows in the United States TV programs viewed by all households in the United States (111.4 million households) Nielsen Media Research has been rating television programs for more than 40 years Nielsen uses several sampling procedures, but its main one is to track the viewing patterns of 10,000 households. These contain more than 30,000 TV programs viewed people and are chosen to form a cross section of the overall population. The by Nielsen sample households represent various locations, ethnic groups, and income brackets. (10,000 households) The data gathered from the Nielsen sample of 10,000 households are used to draw inferences about the population of all households in the United States. Top-Ranked Programs in Prime Time for the Week of 2/12/07-2/18/07 Ran Rank Last Week Program Name Network Day, Time Rating Share Audience American Idol-Tuesday FOX Tues., 8:00 P.M. 17.4 25 19,354,000 American Idol-Wednesday FOX Wed., 9:00 P.M. 16.2 24 18,045,000 Grey's Anatomy ABC Thu., 9:00 P.M. 16.0 23 17,809,000 House FOX Tues., 9100 P.M. 14.8 22 16,469,000 CSI CBS Thu., 9:00 P.M. 13.8 15,323,000 CSI: Miami CBS Mon., 10:00 P.M. 12.7 b N 8 14,093,000 Desperate Housewives ABC Sun., 9:00 P.M. 11.7 13,060,000 10 Deal or No Deal-Monday NBC Mon., 8:00 P.M. 10.0 15 11,167,000 Two and a Half Men CBS Mon., 9:00 P.M. 10.0 14 11,099,000 Shark CBS Thu., 10:00 P.M. 9.8 16 10,909,000 Exercises 1. Rating Points Each rating point represents 5. Interval Level of Measurement Which column in 1,114,000 households, or 1% of the households in the the table contains data at the interval level? How can United States, Does a program with a rating of 8.4 these data be ordered? What is the unit of measure have twice the number of households as a program for the difference of two entries in the data set? with a rating of 4.2? Explain your reasoning. 6. Ratio Level of Measurement Which three columns 2. Sampling Percent What percentage of the total number contain data at the ratio level? of U.S. households is used in the Nielsen sample? 7. Share The column listed as "Share" gives the 3. Nominal Level of Measurement Which columns in percentage of televisions in use at a given time. Does the table contain data at the nominal level? the Nielsen rating rank shows by rating or by share? 4. Ordinal Level of Measurement Which columns in Explain your reasoning. the table contain data at the ordinal level? Describe 8. Inferences What decisions (inferences) can be two ways that the data can be ordered. made on the basis of the Nielsen ratings? 17