Subject: Re: Unfair TV Ratings - Ron Reagan show (TP/30Something)
From: giovin@risky.ecs.umass.edu (Rocky J Giovinazzo)
Date: 1991-08-28, 17:23
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <56693@apple.Apple.COM> unknown@Apple.COM (Matt Ackeret) writes:
> >In article <1991Aug28.054403.7162@risky.ecs.umass.edu> giovin@risky.ecs.umass.edu (Rocky J Giovinazzo) writes:
>> >>Did anyone see the recent Ron Reagan talk show featuring 
>> >>Bob Iger of ABC, Steven Bocchco, Diane English and some other
>> >>tv people?  Apparently, there are only 4000 Nielson households in the
>> >>country (USA)!  I thought it was 1/1000 households but its only 1/23000 !!!
>> >>Holy Cow!  (The guests admitted that this representation was extremely
>> >>low but didn't seem to really care much -- except maybe Diane English,
>> >>creator of Murphy Brown).  

> >I didn't see the show, but I do know that it can be shown 
> >mathematically that a seemingly small sample if chosen scientifically (i.e.
> >represents the whole well) can very accurately represent the whole group.
> >That is, a tiny proportion can give results closely approximating
> >the results that would be gotten if everyone was sampled.
> >I'm not saying that the Nielsen families ARE a statistically valid
> >sample.. they probably aren't. But simply saying it's 1/23000-th of the 
> >population doesn't necessarily mean it's going to give incorrect results.


I didn't mean to say that having only 1/23000 of the households in a sample
is too small to be accurate.  What I meant was that *given the
debatable possible problems* with the Nielson's ability to accurately choose
households, this small percentage makes it seem even less likely that the many 
viewing groups in such a diverse population are well represented.

Rocky Giovinazzo

Bob Iger:  "Boy, I'd sure love to see them [the Nielsons] eliminated."