Have you ever taken part in surveys about listening/watching ratings?

Nielsen Ratings are widely used.

They use different methods to see what a group of selected viewers are watching and use that as a sample group.

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Nielsen television ratings are gathered in one of two ways:

Viewer “diaries”, in which a target audience self-records its viewing or listening habits. By targeting various demographics, the assembled statistical models provide a rendering of the audiences of any given show, network, and programming hour.

A more technologically sophisticated system uses Set Meters, which are small devices connected to televisions in selected homes. These devices gather the viewing habits of the home and transmit the information nightly to Nielsen through a “Home Unit” connected to a phone line. The technology-based home unit system is meant to allow market researchers to study television viewing habits on a minute to minute basis, seeing the exact moment viewers change channels or turn off their TV. In addition to set meters, individual viewer reporting devices, such as people meters, have allowed the company to separate household viewing information into various demographic groups, but so far Nielsen has refused to change its distribution of data of ethnic groups into subgroups, which could give more targeted information to networks and advertisers.

Changing systems of viewing have impacted Nielsen’s methods of market research. In 2005, Nielsen began measuring the usage of digital video recordings such as TiVo. Initial results indicate that time-shifted viewing will have a significant impact on television ratings. The networks are not yet figuring these new results into their ad rates due to the resistance of advertisers

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I believe the current systems can actually use cell phone networks instead of the phone lines to report back and use the audio of the show to identify it. That way they can tell more reliably if someone is watching a recorded program as well.

I’ve participated in ratings for the local radio stations. Typically, I provide times/durations and stations on a printed form and mail that in. There is usually a payment of $1 that is included in the invitation.

I believe my household has also been (knowingly) monitored for television selections during a set period. I don’t watch TV with any reqularity, so I’m their worst nightmare. I have no doubt it’s unknowingly monitored all the time.