Where do those star ratings for movies in TV listings come from?

June 25, 2009 2:08 PM

Where do those star ratings for movies in TV listings come from?

A lot of TV listings websites, channels, and menus have a 4-star ratings scale attached to movie listings. Where do these ratings come from and who decides how many stars are assigned to a movie?

The movie and TV show synopses are also identical for multiple TV listing services, so they must all be sourced from the same listings vendor.

posted by RotJ to sports, hobbies, & recreation (2 answers total)

Tribune Media Services is the big name in program guide data in the United States. They offer data for movies and TV shows, and the movies include star ratings. Where they get the star ratings from, who knows? Probably some kind of average calculated from their own critics' ratings.
posted by kindall at 2:17 PM on June 25, 2009

According to the Washington Post:

"The star ratings are from Tribune Media Services, which provides the programming listings to many TV books across the country. TMS uses reviews from several sources - including Variety, Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Videohound - to determine its star ratings. "
posted by phoenixy at 3:06 PM on June 25, 2009