Calculating Ratings and Shares
Media Planning & Buying Calculators
The process of calculating ratings and shares can be found using the formulas list below. Rating is the audience of a particular program or station at a specific period of time expressed as a percent of the audience population. The percent sign is not shown, and the rating may represent household viewing or a specific demographic audience segment’s listening or viewing. Share is the audience of a particular television program or time period expressed as a percent of the population viewing TV at that particular time. Share, then, is a percent allocation of the viewing audience and differs from the rating which is a percent of the potential audience. Share is usually reported on a household basis.
HUT or homes using television at a particular time, is expressed as a percent of all TV homes. HUT differs from rating because it combines all viewing, rather than identifying specific program viewing.
PUT or persons using television at a particular time, is expressed as a percent of all persons in TV homes. PUT combines all persons viewing, rather than reporting specific program viewing. Note that PUT and PVT (Persons viewing television) are interchangeable terms in common usage.
Ignoring variances caused by rating service reporting standards and multi-set viewing, the following mathematical relationships apply after first converting rating, share, and HUT to decimals.
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