Statistics are all around us. Even on television. But not just as a decision science for advertisers and the network or channel sales executives, but as ENTERTAINMENT.

Have you ever wondered who gets surveyed to get the top answers for questions on Family Feud?  Probably not.

Actually, you probably were watching the show once and thought you knew the number one answer, only to find out that it wasn’t even on the board.  Maybe then you thought to yourself that there was something wrong with the system, or maybe that they found the 100 most incompetent people who somehow didn’t give the most obvious answer.  Well it turns out that Family Feud actually is quite credible, at least compared to typical entertainment polls.

The game show actually hires a polling firm, who surveys people over the telephone by random digit dialing.  This ensures the most random possible sample. However, others believe that only asking 100 people doesn’t give a good enough representation of the American population. The margin of error for the number one answer is 10%.  Still, most often the randomness of survey gives pretty accurate, representative results.

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