ABSTRACT
Ratings date to the earliest days of television and radio. They estimate the audience size and composition, which in turn is used by broadcasters to set the costs of airtime for advertisers and, as a tangential result, the fate of TV shows. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, audience measurements have varied over time and began to change dramatically in the last years of the 20th century. The Museum of Broadcast Communications suggests that a more scientific and precise system was used by the Hooper ratings, which employed a system that asked respondents what programs they were listening to at the time of the call. Subscribers, such as radio stations and broadcast buying firms, receive monthly reports from Nielsen/Arbitron that provide data about the radio listening from the previous month. Ratings continue to animate the TV industry and advertisers.
