THE FUTURE OF
AUDIENCE RESEARCH
A STRANGE BUSINESS
Usually a business knows what it has produced,
traded and delivered ,from its internal information
sources
We depend on a survey to provide the market
with that information
It is usually as high a quality survey as can be
afforded
BUT
It is still only a survey combining research,
statistics and technology
WHY DO WE DO THIS?
It is valuable for broadcasters to know how they
are performing
BUT
We would not have systems of this size ,
complexity and accuracy if we did not need a
trading currency
WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR A
TRADING CURRENCY?
• You need some numbers that parties to the
trade can have sufficient confidence in as a
measure of reality to be able to trade
• Accuracy is nice but not obligatory
This is Not a New Issue
OUR JOURNEY
• It was straightforward
• People only watched television on television sets
• Relatively little viewing took place outside of private
homes
• There was an existing accepted trading model and
currency using ratings and impacts
• These could be measured by metered panels
• Virtually all televisions could be metered
• So a single reliable measurement could provide the
comprehensive currency
The Television environment got more
complicated
• improved definition
• and then High Definition
• digital as well as analogue
• off-air, cable and satellite
• colour
• more channels
• still more channels
• VCR's and then PVR's
But…
Viewing was still confined to television
sets so the existing measurement and
currency could amend and cope
Then came the Internet
Others forecast the decline of television
The truth is otherwise
The internet plus more screens, more
types of screen and in more locations
expand viewing opportunities and have
increased viewing
SO WHAT HAS CHANGED?
• Far from being in decline as some forecast,
television has exploded onto screens of all
types and sizes and all over the place
• Fragmentation means that the actual size of
what we are aiming to measure gets smaller
and smaller
Existing measurement systems can cope with live
and playback television delivered to television sets
via the internet
So the issue is not about the internet but about
screens that cannot be metered in the usual way
With VOD the issue is more likely to be about the
internet as well as the screen
• This is not about the future but the present
• Television viewed on television sets continues to
be measured and traded as before
• Television delivered via the internet tends to be
traded with the rest of the internet using
clicks/hits/return path data
• There tend to be two currencies with their own
structures, organisations and operations
• So going to one currency would involve changing
existing trading behaviour
• Software meters and existing panels are a
suggested solution but:
• are they able to provide a comprehensive
measurement to existing quality standards?
• what about sample size limitations?
• and respondent compliance?
• Compared to the census of return path data have
we reached the limits of what metered panels of
affordable and practicable size can do?
DECISIONS
• Business decisions
• Research decisions
• The former should precede the latter
• The latter should be able to meet the former’s
needs
TWO QUESTIONS
• What is television?
• What is viewing?
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS
• What do you want/need to measure?
• And how well?
WHAT IS TAM/JIC FOR ?
• To measure viewing on domestic television
sets?
• To measure all viewing of television
broadcasters’ output?
• To measure all audio-visual viewing?
BUSINESS QUESTIONS
• How big and important will viewing at home not on television sets
become? How much effort, cost and upheaval is worth it?
• How important will it be for all television to be planned/traded with a
single currency?
• Will fragmentation force change?
• If the TAM JIC does not extend its measurement will the credibility of
the television currency suffer?
• What about out-of-home? Does trading audio-visual with return path
data including out-of-home viewing open/reopen the issue for viewing
on televisions?
• How will television viewing and airtime trading fit within total audiovisual? Do we need to distinguish broadcaster output from other audiovisual on the internet? If so, how and what about our material on third
party sites?
• If the market retains separate measurements for viewing on television
sets and via the internet how will it deal with any possible double
counting?
The Importance of Timing
Timing
The case of BARB and playback
Timing
The case of BARB and playback
Timing
Wait for developments and then act
Pro• Does not waste effort and cost
Con• May suffer losses because of unmeasured viewing
Prepare for whatever may happen
Pro• Ready for what happens when it does
Con• Wasted effort and resource if it does not happen
TIMING
This time we’re all in this together
A POINT ABOUT TIMING
• In the past when new developments were taking place,
decisions about measurement had to be made without good
information
• Now RPD may give us a guide as to how big the unmeasured
may be and so help in deciding what to do about it
HAVE WE TAKEN PANELS AS
FAR AS THEY CAN GO?
PANELS
• Panels have been at the core of measuring television
audiences
• Panels have provided us with reasonably reliable and accurate
data and allowed for measurement of behaviour over time
• Panel sizes have tended to increase
PANELS
•
•
•
•
•
BUT
Average home sizes have fallen so total panel individuals may
not have increased by much
The variety of homes to be represented in terms of sociodemographic and television characteristics has grown
Channel choice has exploded and audiences have fragmented
Aggregation helps but the statistical reliability of our
measurements has generally declined and continues to do so
Even if all screens of all types could be metered, for how much
longer can we pull ‘the trick’ off?
PANELS
•
•
•
•
•
BUT
Average home sizes have fallen so total panel individuals may
not have increased by much
The variety of homes to be represented in terms of sociodemographic and television characteristics has grown
Channel choice has exploded and audiences have fragmented
Aggregation helps but the statistical reliability of our
measurements has generally declined and continues to do so
Even if all screens of all types could be metered, for how much
longer can we pull ‘the trick’ off?
PANELS
• Why not increase panel sizes?
• Generally at the levels of current panel sizes increases in those
sizes and costs bring disproportionately small statistical
improvements
• Panels will always be relatively costly even if there was some
cost cutting technical breakthrough in panel operations and
meter technology and there is no sign of that
• People’s co-operation and compliance are at best not
improving
PANELS
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
•
•
•
•
Spend mega €’s more, maybe just to stand still?
Live with it?
Accept a gradual continuation of decline in accuracy?
Think outside of ‘the box’
RETURN PATH DATA
• Can television become more like other businesses and use its
own internally generated data as a measure and currency or
an ingredient for that?
• It is likely that it is the smallest channels and viewing events
(those most disadvantaged by our panels ) whose audiences
mostly or totally would be able to generate RPD because of
the platforms that carry them
RPD
• Use them!
• Easily said
BUT
• Need to be reliable/Be real opportunities for a person to see
• Need to be measured in a way that can align with existing
measures
• Need to be measured consistently by all parties
PANELS AND RPD
•
•
•
•
PANELS
Tell us about people’s characteristics and behaviour
Limited by sample size
RPD
Limited by only telling us about machines
But can have the advantage of census quality data
CAN WE BRING THE TWO TOGETHER TO ENJOY THE BENEFITS
OF BOTH AND AVOID THE DRAWBACKS OF EACH?
OOH
• Does this all reopen the issue of measuring and trading out-ofhome viewing?
• Measurement was never going to be straightforward and
would still not be
• But there are more people not living in private households
covered by TAM panels
• And more viewing taking place by residents of private
households outside of such households
• And trading some other media and specifically the Internet
includes out-of-home
THE RESEARCH AGENCIES
• Comscore; GFK; Kantar; Nielsen
• Start from different places
• Comscore and Nielsen start with on-line panels and are moving
towards audio-visual to a TAM detailed level
• GFK and Kantar start with TAM measurements and move towards
the on-line
• Nielsen-a foot in both silos
• All are working on how to measure audio-visual on non-television
screens and how to integrate that with TAM data
• Software meters-issues with types of equipment/delivery such as
apps
• Broadcasters need to ‘mark’ output
• How to personalise RPD
• How to integrate data
KANTAR MEDIA
• Virtual meter
• Kantar limited action in UK/BARB…but now
• RPD
• Data integration-Not yet
• Total meter
GFK
•
•
•
•
•
TAM operator
Software meter
Active projects
Using RPD but not for television currency
Not yet integrating data
COMSCORE
• One of the two leaders in on-line panels and measurements.
Media Metrix.
• No TAM involvement
• Hold UKOM contract in UK and planning to include audiovisual
• In USA with ESPN integrating television viewing data with online data
• Open to working with TAM operators
NIELSEN
• A foot in both camps: TAM and on-line panels
• On-line products. On-line Campaign Ratings.
• Working across options including panels, software meters,
RPD, STB data, integrating data sources
IN THE UK
•
•
•
•
BARB is now actively engaged in developments
Virtual Meter: Now in some 800 panel homes
Beyond 7 day playback
RPD-Project Dovetail
BACKGROUND TO VIRTUAL
METER
• Television has spread to other screens
• Follow the viewers
• So the metered panel needs to do the same
THE VIRTUAL METERTECHNICAL SIDE
• Another software meter: can do it all
• But mimics the set meter: sound activated/concentrates
on television
• Log Panel members only
• Audio match (+ web address)
• Broadcasters may need to code
• Not (yet) all kinds of screen and operating system
• Need to identify the signal
THE VIRTUAL METER-RESEARCH
SIDE
• Existing panel: need for agreement and compliance.
What if not? Panel upheaval and cost (tail wagging dog)
• New panel: need for agreement and compliance. What if
not? Recruitment rates, representativeness, costs.
THE VIRTUAL METERSAMPLE SIZE
• The size of the metered television panel
• Too small for things this small?
• Zero, undermeasured, just right or overmeasured-usually
not just right
• Matters?
• Small because it is small
• If it was larger it would then be measured more
accurately
• Data integration
THE VIRTUAL METERDATA
• What will be reported?
• What do you do with them?
• Too small? Too soon?
• Everything correctly identified? Wrong? Other data
wrong? All wrong?
PROJECT DOVETAIL
• Co-ordinate the collection of consistent (same
tagging) player data from major broadcasters
• Report
• Integrate with panel data
PROJECT DOVETAIL
• Co-ordinate the collection of consistent (same
tagging) player data from major broadcasters
• Report
• Integrate with panel data
IN SWEDEN
• MMS is the television JIC
• Have been reporting television data alongside on-line
• Objective now is to ‘Create a media currency for moving
images regardless platform, that are fully accepted and used
by the industry’
• Work and testing solutions ongoing
• 2016 target
• Panel plus RPD
• Codes inc on apps
IN THE NETHERLANDS
•
•
•
•
•
•
One of the Google panel countries
Since 2010
Via GFK
Initiated and funded by Google but data for sale
Television + On-line + Demographics + Purchasing
Work in progress
IN GERMANY
• Target to link TAM panel with software
meter panel for other screens
• Target 2014
WHAT MARKET ARE WE IN?
•
•
•
•
•
We have been and are television
Are we still television?
We compete with each other in the same traded environment
Or are we now audio-visual?
Are we now/in the future in the same market as anything else
of broadcast quality audio-visual on a screen or of anything
audio-visual on a screen?
• Do we design a measurement that meets our needs and
explicitly seeks to exclude others ?
• Or do we design a measurement that meets our needs but
could also meet those of others (as in the past)?
• We? Others?
SO WILL THE INTEGRATION OF PANEL
DATA AND RPD HAPPEN?
• What may seem logical and technically best does not mean it
will happen
• Trading relationships and systems already exist separately for
viewing on television screens v other screens
• CPT/revenue issues-but do they last? If the measurement of
viewing via the internet is perceived as simpler/of lower
research technical quality than for viewing on television sets
how might that affect the growth and pricing of such airtime.
• Planning v trading
• Good enough measurement drives out the better. Does a
measurement/currency that will do well enough prevent the
coming of a better one? (Bad money drives out good.)
NEEDS AND PRIORITIES
• Television sets still matter: Their measurement remains the
priority
• The metered measurement of (larger) screens at home that
cannot be hardware metered
• The use of external data probably in some statistical
combination with panel data
• The metered measurement of (smaller) screens that cannot
be hardware metered/mobile/out-of-home
• The importance of IT expertise
• Marking output
QUESTIONS
COMMENTS
THANK YOU