How does the People Meter Work

How does the People Meter Work?

The People Meter itself is designed to assist our members in remembering to log in and out. It has a series of prompts that act as visible reminders to members. These prompts are a series of lights on the front of the People Meter, and they are active whenever the television is on. The specific prompts are as follows:

When the television is first turned on, a single light initially blinks, and then the entire bank of lights will flash until any viewers present log in on the People Meter or People Meter remote control.
For each member of the household, a number is assigned, and there are a red and a green light on the People Meter display corresponding to this person. When this person is logged in, the green light is on; when logged out, the red light is on. Thus, there is a visible reminder to viewers as to who is currently logged in and who is not, and this feedback encourages panel members to log in and out correctly.
Whenever someone changes the channel on the television, the lights flash, reminding viewers to check to see if anyone needs to log in or out, and then push the "OK" button.
If there has been no button-pushing activity, or television on/off changes or channel changes for 70 minutes, the People Meter lights flash. This reminds viewers to re-check their log-in status.

Sample households are in our People Meter panel for a maximum of two years. Our experience shows this term limit improves cooperation.

We have designed sophisticated software and systems to identify trends in button pushing that give us “flags” that one or more members may not be pushing buttons correctly. This performance analysis system provides timely information to our Field force and Membership Reps, which leads to follow-up calls and visits to the household.

This performance analysis system provides timely information to our Field force and Membership Reps.

In general, we believe that our multi-faceted system provides a high level of appropriate button-pushing behavior.


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