Nielsen rating

noun

an estimate of the total number of viewers for a particular television program, expressed as a percentage of the total number of viewers whose television sets are on at the time and based on a monitoring of the sets of a preselected sample of viewers.

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Origin of Nielsen rating

First recorded in 1960–65; after the A.C. Nielsen Co., its originator

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019