How do they know ?

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Evans Electric

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Heard a comment on radio that the recent royal wedding attracted 13,000,000  viewers on BBC    and a couple on ITV    :innocent  .    But how do they know  how many tuned in  ?    

 
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It would be easier on commercial telly as everyone would put a brew on during the breaks and courgette up national grid.

:lol:

 
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It would be easier on commercial telly as everyone would put a brew on during the breaks and courgette up national grid.

:lol:
HHMMMM  !    I could see how you could detect a  device that was transmitting  but is it so easy to detect a receiver  I ask ?  

Can't be that method Ducky  theres no Commer vans on the roads now .  

 
A number of homes in the uk have devices that log which channels are viewed etc ...... this is taken as a representative sample ....... and hence the claimed millions of viewers.

 
Well,I am not one of the 13m

not seen ANY of the Ginger/bit part actress of dubious past wedding OR  any of the 22 nonces kicking an inflated pigs bladder around a piece of grass as though it mattered


Neither me, I was working hard to pay taxes for the next royal wedding.

Did watch the Fanny Adams cup though....

HHMMMM  !    I could see how you could detect a  device that was transmitting  but is it so easy to detect a receiver  I ask ?  

Can't be that method Ducky  theres no Commer vans on the roads now .  


Funny you should mention the commer as a mechanic I know has one in his lockup, no engine though!  :lol:

Honestly I have pondered it myself, the tv licence Sprouts just work off the assumption that everyone has a telly. 

 
Well,I am not one of the 13m

not seen ANY of the Ginger/bit part actress of dubious past wedding OR  any of the 22 nonces kicking an inflated pigs bladder around a piece of grass as though it mattered
I have to say  how those outside broadcasts  are really suited to  to the latest HD TVs etc  .    Whether its royal marriages or  22  pigs kicking a nonce's bladder around a field ... the pictures are a definite improvement on  B&W  405 line   1950's  telly  

 
A number of homes in the uk have devices that log which channels are viewed etc ...... this is taken as a representative sample ....... and hence the claimed millions of viewers.
Indeed. We had one in the house when I was a boy. My parents got a very small payment for having it, and (technology of the day) a man came every week to change the waxed paper roll that recorded it's information.  I worked out it printed  code on the roll every time you turned the set on, off or changed between the 3 available channels.  It was hard wired into the back of the tv.  If I got particularly bored on occasions I would sit there just pressing the buttons for fun to hear it whir away inside.

I wonder how such devices work now, and if they would notice the fact I never watch commercial tv live and when I do watch it I skip forward through the adverts, and how would they cope with so many tv's in each house.

 
Ain't jus the telly's that are spying on us.

:innocent
Oh  a conspiracy theory  ....I love 'em  .

It was put forward not long ago for every new car to have a tracker embedded in it so that Big Bro ...   erm the government would know where we all were .  

I was forman on a job back in the day ,  an ex West Mids Police garage  & offices  , large building being taken over & swallowed up into the campus of the university .

Gets message  " Bloke in a proper whistle 'n flute  looking for you  Deke ,  bowler 'at  & striped pants  ...the lot  "   

This bloke has travelled up from  The Home Office in Whitehall  and he says  " Can you confirm your middle name " ?    " Address , post code and mother's maiden name  & DOB please "  

I'm thinking  WTGrape is this  lot  !!!      He'd come about the nuclear attack siren  which was still attached to the building & wired in  ( By-passing the meter as they do )  

We had to go on the  roof   to look at it  etc  ,  then he says OK  just disconnect it when you do your alterations .          As we walk  off  he says  " Hows your brother ,  Roy I think   ....works for ****( a German company )"      " Now then ,,,New Street Station  next stop " 

Which was true , at the time before becoming a priest he worked for them and supplied the MOD with stuff ....creepy . 

 
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Looking on Youtube last night  , stuff about the JFK assassination    lot of it  crazy ......    then an interview with  one of the  surgeons who received him at the hospital.

He was the sort of guy you believe  , it goes on for a good while  then he just  comes out with ....."   well the shot from behind exited his throat  but it was the shot from the front that did all the damage  to the back of the President's head   ......"      And just continues to talk  .   :C  

 
The company that does the TV monitoring is called BARB, there is a monitoring electronic box on each tv, and a bit of software on all the other viewing devices, iPads, computers etc. There is a remote where you enter who is viewing, It transmits all the data of channels watched times etc back to their base over the mobile network.

We have the system fitted, we get points every month which can be used at the likes of Argos, never used it yet so not sure what we have earned, not much I suspect.

I do it to try and sway the figures to show that soaps are not watched, but documentaries are far more popular.

 
I do it to try and sway the figures to show that soaps are not watched, but documentaries are far more popular.
You'll never swing that statistic  on your own  Roys    but I support your efforts . 

We watch on Freesat  which supplies  ... 500 channels   ( Guesswork there)    many of which are utter bilge .  New ones appear all the time , their remit seems to be  firing commercials at you all day  with a few regurgitated programmes  that they buy in from other sources  .   None of them appear to create any of their own output .  Example ..an 1 hour episode of New Tricks  on some channel you never heard of , goes out with 5  X 5 minute  ad breaks .  

I hear the BBC being slated constantly  but it is still the main producer of  new programming & documentaries  along with ITV   & Channel 4   .  So the original  channels dating back to the 1970's  remain the market leaders .          The rest are merely soulless  purveyors of commercials  , buying in long forgotten favourites  or American  3rd rate  brain fodder to trot  out relentlessly  24 hrs a day  .....not encouraging new talent ... probably employing  a dozen jobs ...no personalities.......creating nothing .     

 
Honestly I have pondered it myself, the tv licence Sprouts just work off the assumption that everyone has a telly.


Yep, you want to see the threatening letters i get..

Well, i have not even got a telly, so they can courgette off when they come..

I know, you are all wondering why i do not just tell them i have not got one. Well, they send you a threatening letter telling you that if you DO NOT have a telly to tell them, but then add that they might well turn up anyway..

Well, if that is their attitude, they can courgette right off and waste their time coming here. I will not even let them in, nothing they can do.

IF, they had written civil letters, i would have been perfectly cooperative with them, but since they started with their attitude [the first letter you get is a disgrace] they can go courgette themselves..

john..

 
Yep, you want to see the threatening letters i get..

Well, i have not even got a telly, so they can courgette off when they come..

I know, you are all wondering why i do not just tell them i have not got one. Well, they send you a threatening letter telling you that if you DO NOT have a telly to tell them, but then add that they might well turn up anyway..

Well, if that is their attitude, they can courgette right off and waste their time coming here. I will not even let them in, nothing they can do.

IF, they had written civil letters, i would have been perfectly cooperative with them, but since they started with their attitude [the first letter you get is a disgrace] they can go courgette themselves..

john..


Post them up here :lol:

 
I never believe the viewing numbers these days .............. there are far too many channels, freeview/ subscription plus the likes of Netflix and Amazon and then so many people buy DVD's 

I take all these claims with a big pinch of salt

 
Post them up here :lol:


I have shredded them all, but when the next one comes i will post it!!

Last one said something like; "your premises have been authorised by a visit from the worcester enforcement office" or something like that. Hope they have a nice day out though, as worcester is about 80 miles from here!!

john..

 
One of my long term customers never had an Aunt Nelly  ,  his job took him abroad almost every week , he lived alone back then , had the radio  but was basically too busy to sit & watch TV  .      

Every year they threatened him with court action  because they  didn't believe there was no TV .     Every year he would say just tell me what court  , what time  and I'll be there  .     It never happened.  

He's now married with  two kids  & three  TV  but I'm pretty sure he  doesn't actually watch them  .   Kids have always got CEBEBEs  on . 

 
HHMMMM  !    I could see how you could detect a  device that was transmitting  but is it so easy to detect a receiver  I ask ?  

Can't be that method Ducky  theres no Commer vans on the roads now .  
In the days of that old Commer I believe they could detect the local oscillator radiations emitted by the receiver, in which case they could tell exactly what was being watched with a precise location too.   In these days of digital/cable/satellite I haven't a clue .

I did once work with a chap who had no TV. He had a very full life without, and just no interest in the box.

Unfortunately he lived in a newish housing development where the builders had installed aerials.

He was repeatedly fending off the enforcement people, including inviting them into his home to see that there was no TV.  

Sadly, he was the most honest guy anywhere and wouldn't have dreamed of cheating. He also continued to humour the "inspectors" where most people, including me would have lost their rag with them.

 
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