when you Tivo / DVR a television show does the network still recieve the ratings?

The simple answer is yes, here is more information, the Tivo/DVRs would be covered under the paper diary's that some fill out:

We [Nielsen Media Research] collect viewing information for both national and local programs — not only what's being viewed (tuning data), but also the composition of the audience (demographic data).

Daily household minute-by-minute viewing and tuning data, from both the national and local metered samples, is stored in the in-home metering system until it is automatically retrieved by our computers each night. Once the data is relayed via phone lines to our operations center in Oldsmar, Florida, it is processed that same night for release to the television industry the next day.

Television networks, stations, and third-party data providers give us information on program lineups, telling us what aired on each channel. This essential reference data helps us turn the raw tuning and viewing data into meaningful numbers for reporting.

To comprehend the dimension of our task, let's look at the numbers. We collect information from approximately 25,000 metered households starting at about 3 a.m. each day, process approximately 10 million viewing minutes a day, and make more than 4,000 gigabytes of data available for customer access the next day. In addition, we collect and process data from 1.6 million handwritten paper diaries from households across the country during sweep periods.

When the meter data is transmitted from the home to Nielsen, it is in raw code form. We then run a series of tests to ensure the integrity of this data.

If a problem is discovered, the system will flag the data from that household, analyze the problem, and determine the best course of action for correcting it. The solution may be as simple as calling the household to gather some information. In other instances, we may schedule a Nielsen field representative to visit the household and either repair or replace metering equipment, or re-coach the family members on usage of our equipment.

Once the data has been validated, our systems combine the transmitted and internal reference data to convert it to ratings information. tivo reports recorded shows

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