>>Just to be clear- content ratings are guidelines for parents to know what their kids are likely to see.
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>>But 'ratings' in the TV industry is often used to mean how many people are watching and therefore how many people the advertisers are reaching. It is often the determining factor of a show's success or continuation.
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>Which is bull... the ads aren't reaching us even when we do watch :). These guys are just playing with probabilities, they have no facts at all.
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>BTW, is the rating system the main reason why nothing ever happens on TV that was accidental? Why there is no live TV at all? Even what is live is staged. When was the last time something unscheduled happened and was let to be seen on TV (not counting 9/11, which is only a measure of how strong an event has to be to break this "no surprises" rule)?

Re ad viewership, actually they do know, at least some of the time. TiVo now sells precise viewing data to advertisers, showing how often ads are viewed, skipped, repeat viewed, etc. I read a story after the Super Bowl that said TiVo's data showed the ads were watched even more than the game (which itself was the most watched SB in a number of years).