millions watching coronation street

[diggerman]

Can some tell me how they work out how many people watch a television program, yoou see the details in the papers 23 million watched corrie , how do they know?

[bernardo]

There are about 10,000 households which each have a thingy in their TV set which automatically records the times when the TV is on, and which channel. They also do street-based surveys (like an opinion poll) to ask people what they watched the previous day. They sort-of extrapolate the figures to work out the national total.

[javelinpc]

as i understand it the census is based on the extra amount of electrical energy consumed during commercial breaks

i heard that the "national grid" reports the findings, i suppose based upon how much energy a kettle consumes, as this is when most people make a cuppa!

i could be completely wrong....... and probably am - because how could you calculate the amount of viewers watching Eastenders? It doesn't use much electricity to slit your own wrists or turn to a bottle of whisky after watching such depressing drivel - does it?