So how is the AI rating calculated anyway?

[23skidoo]

This one's for the UK members. British TV has this Appreciation Index rating that has been around for years. In the case of Doctor Who I tend to see it as being more valuable than the actual viewer rating because it actually gauges how much people like a show.

I'd never really heard of AI until DW made headlines with Stolen Earth and Journey's End setting records with 91 ratings (gee, I thought no one liked the RTD era. Oh well). Apparently, though, some version of AI has been in place since at least the mid-60s as the BBC's online Doctor Who archive includes documents making note of this index from time to time. To my knowledge neither Canada nor the US has anything like this. Or if they do, the numbers aren't make public.

How exactly is it calculated? I already know British TV sets are more technologically advanced than our behind-the-times North American society (no such thing as Red Button over here, nor did we ever get anything approaching Ceefax except for the 25 people or so who tried "WebTV"). Is there some sort of magic button you push to indicate whether you liked a show? Does everyone in the UK have brain implants?

Alex

PS. Mods, this one's a borderline topic for DW, I know, but please don't move it to TV & Media or Misc as it pertains directly to ongoing discussions on this thread regarding DW ratings.

 

[Starkers]

I don't know the full answer, but I do remember one former gf's family having buttons. It's not something that is remotely in every home though. More like a sample of people across the UK.

 

[cultcross]

A little like Neilson homes in the US, certain families here which are demographically representative, about 20,000 people total I think, are surveyed with regard to whether they actually enjoyed the shows they watched - the idea is to get rid of the disconnect between the number of people who watched something and the number who actually thought it was good. Especially useful for extreme ends of the scale: niche audience programs and huge audience programs (like soaps, that you watch religiously regardless of whether a particular episode is good or not) where the actual viewing figures tell you little. Currently it's done online, and the results aren't usually published (unless they're particularly good!!). According to the BBC themselves the average rating for TV is 80/100, but it's not the most scientific method ever as it generally only allows for pretty skewed-positive results - the minimum score is 10, not 0, because of the way it is done, and a lot of quality questions are based on the BBC's chartered responsibilities - for example educational content - rather than production merits in the traditional sense.

 

[diankra]

As Cult Cross says, on the basics.
I have some AI reports (in a filing cabinet from research for an old article).
From what I remember, there was usually a fairly clear pattern between decreasing ratings and increasing AIs (this is very noticeable in Trial of a Time Lord). Basically, the casual viewers had dropped out, and only the dedicated ones were staying on, so the AIs rose.
Occasionally you get blips in that pattern: The Gunfighters didn't do that badly in the ratings, buts the AIs were dreadful; similarly, Bonnie Langford's debut in Trial 9 got very good ratings for that season, and OK AIs, but they both slid over the following weeks (theory: people who wouldn't usually watch Doctor Who but did like dancer Bonnie tuned in, but then didn't like the show. Ther's a noticeable increase in the number of 55+ viewers when she arrives, but they then become very negative in the AIs).

 

[Timofnine]

A little like Neilson homes in the US, certain families here which are demographically representative, about 20,000 people total I think, are surveyed with regard to whether they actually enjoyed the shows they watched

A bit like surveying a few UK constituency's and going off their opinion on politics... without taking in to account the opinions of the country as a whole/the majority. :O)