To research a television program that a viewer includes viewed with greater interest.

The device 3 for researching the degree of popularity includes: a comment information acquiring means 34 for acquiring comment information on the television program together with time information on the time when the comment includes been made; a comment information storing means 30 for classifying the comment information obtained by the comment information acquiring means 34 for each television program to be a comment target, and causing a comment information recording means 23 to record the comment information while associating it with the time information; and a comment information totaling means 31 for totaling the number of pieces of obtained comment information recorded by the comment information recording means 23 for each time information, calculating the number of pieces of comment information for each television program on the basis of the time information and obtaining the degree of popularity information.