Wallace, Introduction to Information Systems, 2
nd
edition
Instructor’s Manual
Chapter 7, Business Intelligence and Decision Making
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
18
E-Project 2—Analyzing Nielsen TV Ratings with Excel
In this e-project, you will explore TV ratings and analyze them with Excel.
Download the Excel file called Ch07_NielsenRatings. This file contains ratings for
popular network programs for two separate weeks in 2013.
(http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/top10s.html). The rating represents the percent of
U.S. households that were watching that channel at the time (of those whose TV was
turned on).
7-34. Calculate three new columns.
a. Percent change (up or down) in number of viewers from the March 25
data to the April 1 data for each show.
b. Percent change (up or down) in rating for each show.
c. Absolute change in the number of viewers for each show.
The spreadsheet will look like this.
7-35. Answer the following questions:
a. Which show gains the largest number of viewers from March 25 to April
1? CBS NCAA Basketball
b. Which show is the biggest loser from March 25 to April 1, in terms of
change in ratings? NCIS
c. Compute the total viewers for these shows for March 25 and April 1. How
many total viewers watched one of the TV shows in this list during the week
of March 25? 94,431,000 Program Network
Rating,
week
ending
March 25
Viewers
(000s),
week
ending
March 25
Rating,
week
ending
April 1
Viewers
(000s),
week
ending
April 1
% change
number
of
viewers
% change
in rating
Absolute
change in
number
of
viewers
(000)
CASTLE ABC 6.8% 10,570 7.6%11,792 11.6% 12% 1,222
CBS NCAA Basketball CBS 6.8% 11,292 8.5%14,330 26.9% 25% 3,038
DANCING W/STARS RESULTS ABC 8.9% 13,434 9.0%13,983 4.1% 1% 549
DANCING WITH THE STARS ABC 9.2% 14,472 9.0%13,909 -3.9% -2% -563
NCIS CBS 11.5% 18,620 7.3%11,153 -40.1%-37%-7,467
VOICE NBC 7.9% 13,636 7.9%13,310 -2.4% 0% -326
VOICE-TUE NBC 7.7% 12,407 8.7%13,934 12.3% 13% 1,527
Total 94,431 92,411 -2.1%