May 02, 2006
Global Television Audience Research
We are living in an era of product deluge, media proliferation and audience fragmentation. In effect broadcasters and marketers have to fight for their piece of the economic pie. To achieve this, both need to identify further market segments and rifle desired products/content to designated segments with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
Globally, the same
efficiency sought in the world of
broadcasting and advertising is also
being sought in television measurement.
Innovations and improvements
in audience research are a result
of such demands from the research
consumers.
A look at the world of television audience research:
Audience Measurement in Europe
In the initial
40 years, European television was
regulated by the government and commercial
television was not allowed till 1980's.
In France commercial television came
in as late as 1985, Netherlands 1990...Although,
the measurement systems graduated from
conventional methods (diaries) to
metering, well in advance of the demand
from the advertising industry.
Pioneers in developing
peoplemeter in Europe were two organisations
viz. AGB Research - the earliest installations
were in UK and Italy in 1984 and Telecontrol
systems that went live in Switzerland
and West Germany in 1985. The
biggest innovation was retrieval of
data through telephones, giving rise
to overnight's (overnight ratings).
Previous systems used various storage
devices like paper tapes, compact
disks and purpose built modules, requiring
a visit to households for data retrieval.
In Europe overnight ratings
has been in existence for the last
two decades.
In the formative years, a case in point was East Germany where the telephone penetration was poor resulting in GFK developing a meter requiring a visit by an employee with a portable computer, the same had two implications:
• The need for a larger gross panel to compensate for a higher non-response,
• An inevitable delay in processing and reporting
Organisation of Audience Research
Television ratings systems fall along a wide spectrum, ranging from almost total independence supplier to a fully controlled industry system.
These organisations can be loosely clustered in three major forms:
- Own Services (OS): These are the systems which are set up on an entrepreneurial basis and are wholly owned by research supplier.
- Media Owner Contract (MOC): In this case one or more Broadcasters and/or Advertising agencies get together and give the contract to a research supplier.
- Joint Industry
Committees (JIC): In this format
a committee representing broadcasters,
advertising agencies and advertisers
is formed and task of audience measurement
is commissioned to a research supplier.
The committee owns all the
data and takes all the decisions
regarding the same through consensus.
Apart from these well
defined structures, some hybrid structures
like TRCC (Tripartite Research
Company Contracts) exist, such as
Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, (BBM)
in Canada and Mediametrie in France.
In some of the markets two or more
of these structures are existing,
as is the case in Canada where both
TRCC (BBM) and OC (Nielsen) co-exist.
As per global review of peoplemeter systems by Peter Menneer:
- JIC's are prevalent in European countries like Finland, Italy and UK
- MOC's in Czech Rep, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Hong kong
- TRCC in France and Canada
- OS in Hungary, Russia, Spain, Canada, USA, Brazil, Mexico, India, Japan and Thailand
As, broadcasting markets attain increasing complexity in terms of channel proliferation or multiple distribution platforms, the rating agencies also undergo changes and sometimes mutate into hybrid structures. In some countries rating agencies and audience measurement structures have evolved as follows:
- In UK, BARB, a non-profit making limited company replaced Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research (JICTAR) in 1981. In 1981 BARB was jointly owned by BBC and ITV, today BARB is owned by BBC, ITV, Channel 4, five, BSkyB and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
- In German AGF system started off as a MOC
- BBM in Canada has evolved from a pure JIC to a TRCC over the years
At times mergers also
play their part and the various national
players align themselves as per the
merged global entities. A case in
point is the VNU acquisition of Nielsen
resulting in a single currency in
India.
Other major factors that impact their form and structure are:
- Marketing and advertising activities
- Broadcast and cable industry practices/ technologies, and
- Legal and political factors
- In USA all media
research is subject to self-regulation
and monitoring through the accreditation
functions of the Media
Rating Council Inc. (MRC).
The U.S. Congress reviewing the
practices of media research formed
the Council in the 1960s as a
result of hearings.
As is evident from
the various structures listed above,
television audience measurement is
an ever-changing field. Both in developed
as well as developing advertising
economies, a number of parallel structure
exist and no Structure
is permanent. As the
technologies to measure the television
viewing audiences evolve and improve,
the measurement systems and the structures/service
providers also evolve.
So, the priority should always be to establish a good measurement procedure, which is transparent, responsive and advanced.
References:
1. Raymond Kent, Measuring Media Audiences. Roultage
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