question: When media outlets say x amount of people watched a certain game, how do they calculate that number?
comment: They don't calculate it. Generally these estimates are from Nielsen, a company that specializes, among other things, in gathering TV viewership data. Nielsen has select households, called "Nielsen Households" which they gather viewership data from (and they get data in lots of other methods), from this small sample of people, they extrapolate to get an estimate of the total amount of people that watched.
passages: BULLET::::- "Ratios of these metrics" - e.g. Plays per Viewer, Play Duration per Play, Play Duration per Viewer
  
  Along with other obvious dimensions (like "Country", "Browser", "Device" etc.), a particularly interesting dimension is "Stream Position" (or Video Portion). Measured as a percentage of video length, for a particular video, Plays by Stream Position indicates which portion of the video is watched how many times. It helps with analysis such as, 40% of the viewers drop off from the video after watching only 25%.
  
  Section::::Use-cases and metrics of interest.:Behavioral (or usage) analysis.
   BULLET::::- In Germany TV audience measurement is done by Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (known as GfK).
   Nielsen Media Research. It is used by media planners and buyers, advertisers to appropriate the ratings of channels when individual viewership is calculated. This term is usually used in the US to represent average percentage of People using TV across all channels within predefined time period.
   With the technological developments of the 2000s, Médiamétrie expanded its activities to include measurement of the internet audience in France.
  
  Thus in 1999, Médiamétrie initiated measurement of web traffic thanks to its “24,000 Multimedia” survey. In 2000, the company launched a joint-venture with Nielsen to produce an internet / computer measurement in France that was based on a panel of several thousand individuals.
  
  The emergence of mobile phones and later, tablets encouraged market stakeholders and Médiamétrie to launch an internet / mobile measurement in 2010, and that was then followed by the measurement of tablet audiences. 
   Nielsen's formula for PUT is the number of persons viewing TV divided by the total persons universe i.e. the television rating divided by the total share of television in a particular demographic area.
   BULLET::::- One of those listed by Wegman was the statistician Grace Wahba, who told North by email "Hey they used my name and they said I was a referee. He sent it to me about 3 days beforehand and I sent him a bunch of criticisms which they didn‘t take into account."
   Section::::New media.
  
  Nielsen//NetRatings measures Internet and digital media audiences through a telephone and Internet survey. Nielsen BuzzMetrics measures consumer-generated media. Other companies collecting information on internet usage include comScore, Wakoopa, and Hitwise, who measure hits on internet pages. Companies like Visible Measures focus on measuring specific types of media; in the case of Visible Measures, they measure online video consumption and distribution across all video advertising and content. GfK offers Cross Media Measurement Solutions that allows to attribute offline sales to media exposure across TV, Internet and Mobile utilizing its proprietary LEOtrace technology.
   GRP levels are generally measured and reported on a 4-week basis
  
  It is a measure of the media plan's trust
  
  BULLET::::- CPRP
   "Rating" is the estimated percentage of all televisions tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions "in use" that are tuned in. "Viewers" is the estimated number viewers that watched a program either while it was broadcast or watched via DVR on the same day the program was broadcast.
  
  BULLET::::- Episode 16 had several preemptions in many regions due to football.
  
  BULLET::::- Episode 17 had several preemptions, especially in Colorado and Kentucky. Also, due to golf overrun, the show was delayed by over an hour.
  
  BULLET::::- Episode 19 had several national football preemptions.
   Prominent personalities in the 1990s and 2000s such as David Hasselhoff and Mexico's Thalia (currently based in the U.S.) starred in primetime series such as the "Las Tres Marias" trilogy shows ("Maria Mercedes", "Marimar" and "Maria la del Barrio"), "Rosalinda" and "Baywatch", which were broadcast in about 180 countries and still remained among the world's most-watched non-U.S.-produced television series.
   Section::::Calculation.
  
  It is a term coined by Nielsen Media Research. It refers to the total number of people in a particular demographic area, that are watching television during a given time period. Nielsen defines “PUT as a percentage of the population or as a number that represents the thousands of persons viewing television.” The formula used to calculate PUT is similar to HUT [Houses Using Television]
  
  PUT = (Rating / Share) x 100
   In early 1988, Médiamétrie and other market stakeholders agreed to launch a benchmark measurement based on a larger panel and which took individual audiences into account. At that time, Audimat became Médiamat, which from then on was an individual television audience measurement rather than a household one.
  
  In 2008, the panel was expanded to its current size: 5,000 households, approximately 11,400 individuals aged four years and over. In 2011, recorded time-shifted viewing was incorporated into television audience measurement, followed by catch-up in 2014. Since 2016, Médiamétrie has measured television audiences on four screens: television, computer, smartphone and tablet.
  
  Section::::History.:Radio.
   BULLET::::- In Japan Video Research Ltd. handles radio and television measurement. IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is the industry currency for newspaper and magazine readership
  
  BULLET::::- In Kazakhstan, TV measurement is handled by TNS.
  
  BULLET::::- In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the measurement is done by GfK at the request of Saudi Media Measurement Company (SMMC).
  
  BULLET::::- In Lithuania, TV and radio measurements are handled by TNS Gallup.
   Additionally, the National Football League (or NFL) regular season is watched since 2012 by at least 200 million individuals in the United States, accounting for the largest consistent annual nationwide viewership for any television event in U.S. television history (representing almost 70% of the American households, more than 80% of the total U.S. television viewers, and more than 60% of the 2018 U.S. population of 325 million individuals).
   Are You Watching This?!
  
  Are You Watching This?! (RUWT?!) is an Austin, Texas-based Sports Excitement Analytics company that uses algorithms to identify sporting events that viewers would find exciting or compelling. It was founded by Mark Phillip, an African-American MIT Computer Science Major.
  
  Section::::Overview.
  
  RUWT?! was founded in 2006, launched publicly in 2007, and was bootstrapped by Phillip, its sole employee.
   However, the reliability of these metrics has been drawn into question, partly due to widely divergent estimates. For example, between May and June 2010, ComScore updated its scoring methodology and its estimates for Hulu dropped from 43.5 million unique viewers to 24 million in a single month. In a comScore digital trends report in 2010, comScore's Digital Year in Review report found that Hulu was watched twice as much as viewers who watched on the websites of the five major TV networks combined.
   BULLET::::- Notes
  
  Section::::Most watched television series.:Most watched series episode of the decade.
   BULLET::::- Nielsen ratings for Game 7 of the 2012 NLCS between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals showed that 31.8% of households in the St. Louis area watched the game compared with 27.5 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nationally, Nielsen found that 8.1 million viewers saw this game, a 4.9% share of households. The rating peaked at 5.8 at 7:30 p.m. (Central Time Zone) before declining as viewers switched to "Monday Night Football" or the presidential debate.
   World Cup Tournament: cumulative U.S. viewership by year
  
  Here are the complete tournament cumulative viewership totals for every World Cup tournament since 1994. These totals account for all matches played throughout the tournament. Since matches take place at different times, individual viewers will be counted multiple times. Only ESPN totals have been accounted for. Please find Spanish viewership as well. For context, the average number of viewers of that year's NFL Super Bowl is also provided.
  
  World Cup Final Match: U.S. viewership by year
   BULLET::::- Reliable data of 2016 TV rating has not been released officially.
  
  BULLET::::- Multi-screen live rating includes TV live ratings, online video live ratings and VOSDAL ratings.
  
  BULLET::::- Ratings and viewers data in 2014,2015,2016 is released by CCTV itself.
  
  Section::::Eminent performers.:Recurring Performers.
   PUTs is calculated by considering the average audience figures gauged from the peopleometer, for all channels during a particular time period and adding them together to get the cumulative number. Put is used to calculate the demographic persons rating. Almost all media scales are technically based on person's ratings. It is observed that the percentage rating remains constant from year to year. If changes are observed, then they are slight in nature and only due to changes in viewing habits.
  
  Section::::PUT and PVT.
   HLTV.org rank teams based on results of teams' performances. The rankings shown below reflect the July 10, 2017 rankings. In addition, a list premier tournaments and relevant major events is listed.
   Since the start of 2018, internet audience measurement has been “global”: it includes browsing on computer, smartphone and tablet.
  
  Section::::Company activities.
  
  Section::::Company activities.:Audience measurement.
  
  Médiamétrie conducts media audience measurement in France and covers radio, television, cinema and internet. Its studies are used by media and industry professionals to tailor their editorial content and to obtain data to use when calculating advertising rates.
  
  Section::::Company activities.:Media behaviour studies and new practices among French consumers.
   In most countries the advertising industry, via its peak industry associations, endorses a single media research company as the official provider of audience measurement. The methodology used by the official provider then becomes known as the "industry currency" in audience measurement. Industry members fund the audience research and share the findings. In a few countries, where the industry is more fragmented or where there is no clear peak industry association, two or more competing organisations may provide audience measurement services. In such countries, there is said to be no industry currency.
   Section::::aMap chosen as audience measurement currency by Eurodata TV worldwide.
  
  Eurodata TV Worldwide has released, ‘One Television Year in the World’ a handbook on TV audience measurement data across the world. 
  
  “Eurodata TV Worldwide” is the international data bank of TV programmes and audiences, which now covers over 2000 channels throughout 80 territories and provides daily program information including: content, production, international distribution and the audience levels for targeted programs, all data emanating directly from the authorized institute based in each country. For India the institute is aMap. 
  
  Section::::Connectivity data.
  
presuppositions: Media outlets calculate the number of people who watched a TV program. The media calculates the number of people who watched a certain game.
corrections: Media outlets don't calculate the number of viewers, but Nielsen gathers viewership data and reports  an estimate. The media gets estimates of the number of people who watched a certain game from Nielsen.
raw_presuppositions: Media outlets calculate the number of people who watched a TV program. The media calculates the number of people who watched a certain game.
raw_corrections: Media outlets don't calculate the number of viewers, but Nielsen gathers viewership data and reports  an estimate. The media gets estimates of the number of people who watched a certain game from Nielsen.