What's the highest possible rating?

[Pogo01]

Each episode of Stargate has a sci-fi rating which represents the number of viewers. The highest i've seen is 2.2 what's the highest? a 3?

[PG15]

100.

As in, 100% of people with a TV set is watching your program, or something like that.

[SylvreWolfe]

On Skiffy the highest ratings was a 4.0 with Taken. Other networks get much larger ratings, such as the Superbowl gets well over a 40. And so do other shows.

[Ripple in Space]

On Skiffy the highest ratings was a 4.0 with Taken. Other networks get much larger ratings, such as the Superbowl gets well over a 40. And so do other shows.

Yeah, if Atlantis was on a broadcast network (aside from PBS) it would be canceled within 1-3 eps, even if it maintained the highest ratings we've seen from it. Personally, I'd like to see it on USA or FX on a Tuesday Night, I could see it pulling 4.0s regularly, and that would be adequate on those networks.

[THe KiKO peRsON]

100, of course! Like PG15 said!

[Morrolan]

100, of course! Like PG15 said!

That is incorrect. Ratings are based on number of households with televisions. I believe a rating point is based on 115,000 households or 1% of televisions in the US. Share is based on percentage. The share is based on the percentage of viewers watching TV at the time.

[smurf]

100 is correct. Each point is worth one percent of the channel's household audience.
Each channel's ratings points are based on the number of people who can receive that channel. So for Sci Fi if all 89 million households (or there abouts) who can receive the channel all sat down and watched a Sci Fi Channel show it would gain a rating of 100 points.
But for one of the main channels it would be something like 115 million households to get 100 points.

[ReganX]

100 is correct. Each point is worth one percent of the channel's household audience.
Each channel's ratings points are based on the number of people who can receive that channel. So for Sci Fi if all 89 million households (or there abouts) who can receive the channel all sat down and watched a Sci Fi Channel show it would gain a rating of 100 points.
But for one of the main channels it would be something like 115 million households to get 100 points.

Yes, actual viewers as a percentage of potential viewers - so a show that scored a 2.0 on one channel wouldn't necessarily have the same number of viewers as a show that scored 2.0 on another channel. It can vary year to year, too.

[Vala_M]

How than can rating determine the actual numbers for the shows if only 1% of people are calculated? I never ever liked the ratings system, it is far too flawed to be considered valid in my opinion.

Plus, with shows like Stargate that not everybody likes, you will get lower numbers than actual with ratings. What I mean is compared to sports and games shown on TV, those are things that most people like so they do fine with ratings, personally, I don't watch any sports on TV, I never liked them but that's just me.

Plus, I believe that satellite and digital cable providers can "track" what people watch but why they don't use that for ratings, I don't know.

Vala,

[ReganX]

How than can rating determine the actual numbers for the shows if only 1% of people are calculated? I never ever liked the ratings system, it is far too flawed to be considered valid in my opinion.

Plus, with shows like Stargate that not everybody likes, you will get lower numbers than actual with ratings. What I mean is compared to sports and games shown on TV, those are things that most people like so they do fine with ratings, personally, I don't watch any sports on TV, I never liked them but that's just me.

Plus, I believe that satellite and digital cable providers can "track" what people watch but why they don't use that for ratings, I don't know.

Vala,

Statistically, the Nielsen sample audience should be more than sufficient to accurately estimate the number of viewers watching a given program. I would say that the margin for error is actually quite low - and viewer numbers can be overestimated as well as underestimated.

Don't they also have data on the Nielsen families; age, gender, etc? As long as they're monitoring people of both genders, all age groups, different economic background, etc, they should be able to get very accurate data on who's watching what - obviously, if most of the people with Nielsen boxes were teenage boys or thirty-something women, five year old kids or whatever group you like certain shows would get markedly higher ratings than their viewer numbers would merit but as long as there's a mix reflecting the breakdown of viewers, then it should be accurate.

[Morrolan]

100 is correct. Each point is worth one percent of the channel's household audience.
Each channel's ratings points are based on the number of people who can receive that channel. So for Sci Fi if all 89 million households (or there abouts) who can receive the channel all sat down and watched a Sci Fi Channel show it would gain a rating of 100 points.
But for one of the main channels it would be something like 115 million households to get 100 points.

No, it's incorrect. To attain the highest possible rating, every household in America would have to remain on the same channel without leaving the channel at any time during the show. Additionally, shows do not always air at the same time all over the US. If you could conceivably have every television in the US tuned to the same show at its airing time, the number would be above 100.

Don't they also have data on the Nielsen families; age, gender, etc? As long as they're monitoring people of both genders, all age groups, different economic background, etc, they should be able to get very accurate data on who's watching what - obviously, if most of the people with Nielsen boxes were teenage boys or thirty-something women, five year old kids or whatever group you like certain shows would get markedly higher ratings than their viewer numbers would merit but as long as there's a mix reflecting the breakdown of viewers, then it should be accurate.

They have all kinds of data about the Neilson families. They also pull in data from cable companies on what was watched. Recently, they have been using data from Tivo about what is being recorded. The data isn't that accurate, but close enough. Considering ratings are used almost solely for advertising rates, the numbers don't really need to mean anything.

[smurf]

How than can rating determine the actual numbers for the shows if only 1% of people are calculated? I never ever liked the ratings system, it is far too flawed to be considered valid in my opinion.

Plus, with shows like Stargate that not everybody likes, you will get lower numbers than actual with ratings. What I mean is compared to sports and games shown on TV, those are things that most people like so they do fine with ratings, personally, I don't watch any sports on TV, I never liked them but that's just me.

Plus, I believe that satellite and digital cable providers can "track" what people watch but why they don't use that for ratings, I don't know.

Vala,

It's not 1% of people being calculated (it's actually a lot less than that). It's each rating point is the equivalent of 1% of the possible audience of that channel.

If a show isn't popular, it will get lower ratings. That is the point of the system.

No, it's incorrect. To attain the highest possible rating, every household in America would have to remain on the same channel without leaving the channel at any time during the show. Additionally, shows do not always air at the same time all over the US. If you could conceivably have every television in the US tuned to the same show at its airing time, the number would be above 100.

No, logically the number is never above 100 because 1 point is equal to 1% of the possible household viewership of the channel. If everyone sat down to watch the entire of Show Y on Channel X the maximum amount of households who can watch is 100% of the audience for Channel X, and so 100 points.

Unless you have (Neilsen) households which overlap timezones and get two separate versions of the same channel, it would not be possible for a household to watch two airings of the same show, and affect the ratings in that way. The number of people watching can change, but the number of households is pretty stuck.

[SylvreWolfe]

Having worked in statistics, collecting statistical data, I have yet to believe that you can actually get accurate numbers of samplings of this size. And no one has been able to convince me how.

[Morrolan]

Unless you have (Neilsen) households which overlap timezones and get two separate versions of the same channel, it would not be possible for a household to watch two airings of the same show, and affect the ratings in that way. The number of people watching can change, but the number of households is pretty stuck.

That's exactly what I am talking about. If a house get an east coast feed and a west coast feed, it is possible to overlap shows. It is technically possible to get over a 100 rating, but virtually impossible. In fact, to get a rating as high as 100 is impossible, because it would require every household in the nation to be watching the same show at once. If you take into account that it would mean every single person would have to stay on the same channel continuously without channel surfing, 100 could never be met. Nielsen tracks changes during the show that can affect ratings, as well.

[smurf]

It's technically possible, but highly improbable because Neilsen will not want to include that inaccuracy in to the sample.

The question was what is the highest possible rating, not the likelihood of it. The highest rating possible is 100.
I expect anything over that would result a fair bit of crosschecking and statistical deletion of the offending household. Not that it would matter, since it would still mean 100% of the audience watched the episode.