A wide range of families of all educational backgrounds are preparing to cancel your favorite television shows.

Although February is a traditional sweeps month for TV, all-new episodes of nearly all shows began this week after being delayed because of the Olympics.

During a sweeps month, privileged viewers armed with notepads received from the Nielsen ratings company will delight in watching the 210 local television markets shimmy and sweat for their undivided attention. Those who get it may go on to syndication (like “Friends”) while those who are not so lucky (like “The Mole”) will be cast off the pages of TV Guide forever.

A seemingly horrifying time for any show waiting to get off its feet, “sweeps” is the term that has been given to a system of surveys in which local markets are simultaneously measured by a ratings service. The outcome of the survey is then used by both local and cable stations to determine ad rates and see which shows are getting the boot.

According to Nielsen’s 2001-2002 ratings, the popular TV shows mostly are dramas, with surprisingly little occurrences of reality shows, which seem to have been popping up on every channel for the past few years.

“Friends,” a longtime favorite on NBC, pops up as the No. 1 show, with the only other comedies, CBS’s “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Becker,” staggered at the No. 5 and No. 10 spots. CBS newcomer “CSI: Crime Scene Investigations” holds its place at No. 4, one spot below NBC’s vaunted “ER,” while CBS’s “Survivor (Africa)” acts as a requiem for reality shows that have come and gone, as it finished sadly at No. 8.

This season’s list of shows that failed to turn heads of survey takers seems to have been more popular, going by word of mouth, than ones that went on to win their time slots. CBS’s “Big Brother,” WB’s “Felicity,” Fox’s “The X-Files” and ABC’s barely-seen but much-talked-about “What About Joan” staring Chicago’s own Joan Cusack, are among the fallen.

What is pleasing the Nielsen corporation and its band of merry note takers? Well, to raise an example, although “Friends” made No. 1 on prime-time ratings, it fell to No. 3 in syndication, where it competes with shows like “The Simpsons” and “The Drew Carey Show.”