They only complain if their numbers go down. In 1993, Arbitron abandoned national television ratings, leaving Nielsen with a monopoly. Arbitron continues to be the dominant ratings service for radio. It also specializes in telephone surveys and those that track buying patterns of audiences exposed to specific commercials. The information is valuable to broadcast networks who are trying to figure out where their audience is going and to future Internet advertisers, who want to know how to target their message.
Internet users are extremely attractive to advertisers.
They're young, affluent, highly educated. For all four methods, the rating services develop small, random samples that are designed to accurately reflect the local or national audience. Age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, neighborhood, family status, are all factors. Nielsen constantly tracks about 5,000 TV households through People Meters for its national sample. Another 20,000 metered homes produce reports for local TV markets.