I was looking at some tv show ratings and while certain shows had more viewers then others, their overall rating was lower. How does that work. For instance, Fox's new drama "Touch" opened to a 3.9 rating last night with 11.9 million viewers while Criminal Minds had 13.7 million viewers but a 3.6 rating. It had more viewers though...

Anyone?

Do you have a link to your source?

I think the rating is dependent on the publics reaction to the episode. If a show had 11 viewers but it was a very good show, it may be rated a 4.0. Where as if a show had 30 viewers but the episode was terrible, it may recieve a 2.5

I think the companies that pay to put up advertisemants on tv are more interested in who is watching a show rather than the number of people watching it. Like if you're trying to advertise an anti aging skin product you don't want the ad to air when there's a show watched mainly by children. I think the ratings are probably affected by that, somehow

Yeah here's the link http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/26/touch-ratings/

Anyone review my link?

I did and the best explanation I would go with is:



Just because people are watching it, doesn't mean it's a great show.

Otherwise it appears they get the rating from an "advlt demo" meaning that maybe they screen it and get people to vote on the episode? I'm not quite sure. I do know that when I was at Universal Studio's a few weeks ago I did a screening for 4 NBC shows and gave them feedback (All the shows were pretty lousy IMO). So other than those possibilities, I have no idea how they rate shows vs the amount of people watching.

Was one of the shows the "Firm"?

Ha, yea. Of all of them that was the only "maybe if there was nothing else on."

Wikipedia, on Nielsen ratings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings#Ratings.2Fshare_and_total_viewers

IIRC one is total number of viewers, the other is the percentage of TV sets that are turned on, or something.