A new system that measures what people watch on TV is shaking up the industry, causing some major concerns at some shows and channels, while boosting the fate of others.

Previously television and radio ratings were based on what a representative pool of people said they’d watched or listened to. It was a trust system. No longer. Now the ratings are collected via small pager-like device that detects what is what is on by listening for an inaudible signal embedded in the broadcast. And this new system is causing some pretty dramatic swings in the ratings.

Some shows, like sports, children’s and some prime-time programming have benefited handily. The Globe reported yesterday that the prime time numbers for both CTV and Global are way up for many top shows, House and Grey’s Anatomy up both up by more than 20 per cent. The season premiere of House drew 4.4 million viewers “audience numbers of that size have not been seen in years,” Grant Robertson wrote in Globe.

The system is also creating some losers though. The Weather Network has seen its ratings shrink by 10 per cent, and there’s some obvious concern at the CBC, where audience numbers for The National are down.

Today the some senior managers at the corporation sent out a note to staff in an effort to debunk some of the rumours that have been circulating about the new ratings system. Their “Myth #1″ was that The National “The National has taken a big hit under [the new system].”

There’s obviously some concern. The ratings for The National have dropped by more than 10 per cent. The average for September 2009 was 532,000 viewers. That’s well under last year’s average of 671,000 when Parliament was prorogued and Obama was elected. More worrisome though, is that the ratings have slipped since the summer, which is usually the low point of a ratings year.

“As we’ve been saying from the outset, we’re going to take some time before we draw any firm conclusions about what the numbers are telling us,” the letters says, “although we recognize the unease any downward movement can create.”

The managers said they’re hoping to see the ratings recover in the next few weeks, “As we said, we’re keeping a close eye on the numbers, but it’s still too soon to draw any conclusions.”

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