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Who Are the
Nielsen Media Research Families?
The Nielsen Media Research
families are a cross-section of the households with television sets all across the United
States. Because we have selected them in a way which gives every household an
equal chance of being picked, we have all kinds of households in the sample. This means
that we have homes from all fifty states, from cities and towns, suburbs and rural areas.
We have people who own their homes and people who live in apartments. Some homes in the
panel have children and some don’t. We have African-Americans,
Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans and Native Americans; virtually every ethnic and income group is
represented. When we check the characteristics of households in our samples against the
U.S. Census data, we find that our samples look very much like the population. Of course,
the match is not perfect. When you draw a representative sample, it is usually close to
the population on a given characteristic.
How many Nielsen
Media Research families are there?
There are 5,000 households in the national
people meter sample. A separate sample of approximately 20,000 households participate in
local metered samples; and different samples, including more than one million homes, fill
out paper diaries for one week each year.
Because language spoken in the home plays an important part in the
determination of TV viewing habits, Nielsen Media Research has an additional
1000 home
National People Meter sample comprised of Hispanic-American homes, as well as some additional
sample in many of the
19
largest Hispanic-American markets to ensure adequate representation of
Hispanic-American households and language spoken in the home.
How many of these
Nielsen Media Research families are African-American?
Approximately 12 percent
of the Nielsen Media Research samples are African-American, and this matches the
percentage of all TV households in the United States which are classified as
African-American. When we check the characteristics (race, age, income, education, etc.)
of households in our samples against the U.S. Census data, we find that our samples look
very much like the population. Of course, the match is not perfect. When you draw a
representative sample at random, it is usually close to the population on any given
characteristic.
Let’s look at the
individual samples in terms of African-American representation.
National People Meter
Sample
There are approximately 5,000 households in this sample. The number fluctuates daily, as
about 300-400 households come in and out of the sample every month. Of this number,
approximately 600 households are African-American, or about 12 percent of the total.
Metered Market Sample
In
56 of the largest markets, Nielsen Media Research uses meters for local television
measurement. There are a total of approximately 20,000 metered households
in these markets (or about 400-500 households for each market). While approximately 12
percent of the total of all samples is African-American, this percentage varies by
market as indicated in the following table.
| TV Market |
Number of TV Homes |
% African-American |
| New York |
6.9 million |
18.0% |
| L.A. |
5.4
million |
8.7% |
| Chicago |
3.2 million |
17.7% |
| Washington D.C. |
2.0
million |
22.4% |
| Atlanta |
1.9 million |
23.6% |
| Baltimore |
1.0
million |
26.3% |
| New Orleans |
636,000 |
28.9% |
| Memphis |
642,000 |
35.9% |
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Estimates as of January 1, 2001, and used throughout the
2000-2001 television season which started on September 16.
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Diary
Samples
Every year, Nielsen Media Research mails out more than one million paper diaries to sample
homes in the U.S. The diaries are mailed during the so-called sweep months -- a minimum of
four times a year. Households are asked to write down what they are watching and who is
watching for one week. These samples change all the time. Homes are not asked to keep a
weekly diary more than once, and metered households are not asked to keep diaries at all.
Slightly more than 11 percent of these diary homes identify themselves as
African-American. This percentage, of course, varies by market.
But just because a
household initially agrees to keep a diary and return it to Nielsen Media Research, they
don’t always do so. As a result, sample characteristics often fluctuate. In many
instances, the number of diaries returned does not always match the known composition of
the audience.
For instance, we know that
approximately 18 percent of the TV households in the New York market are African-American.
So approximately 18 percent of our diary sample in New York are African-American
households (actually our diary sample size in New York is greater than
18 percent
African-American to make sure we have enough usable data from this sample group).
In those instances,
however, where the percentage of returned diaries falls below 18
percent (again using the
New York example), Nielsen Media Research "weights" the returned diaries up to
the known percent of African American homes in the market -- or
approximately 18%. This procedure
assures an even playing field and that the ratings are proportionately representative of
the actual population.
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