Utilize the Nielsen system to understand the rating for your favorite TV shows. The Nielsen Company is the industry authority for measuring television consumption and type. Boxes are installed in a select grouping of households and the company tracks what shows are watched, who watches them and when they are watched. The results are then converted into a numerical rating between 1 and 10. With the system, the higher rating a show has, the more it was watched.
Check the Nielsen website on a weekly basis for the latest ratings. The website posts the top 10 ratings every week for the previous week. The top 10 are broken into the type of TV, key demographics, time slots and live versus syndicated television shows.
Assess the various factors that can affect a show's overall rating. For instance, prime time network television shows routinely achieve better ratings than prime time cable shows, simply because fewer households have access to cable. That means while network shows achieve a better rating, the ratings are incomparable by industry standards.
Track the ratings for various TV shows week-by-week by recording the ratings and comparing them to previous weeks. A myriad of variables come into play when seeing changes in ratings, including sports events occurring at the same time, various time slot changes and even the time of year. Remember certain shows and seasons are not judged as harshly as others and therefore needn't be as high-rated to stay on the air.