Two major issues facing television audience research are the requirement to measure fragmented audiences accurately and the demand for measures of return on investment. This paper outlines a new development using set top box data. With the help of TNS, Sky is setting up a 20,000 home panel operation, SkyView. This panel brings several sources together to provide viewing, subscriber, purchasing, and demographic data. This will bring benefits to Sky and also to advertising agencies and clients. This paper considers the requirement for such a panel, the technical issues, and potential benefits.
It is commonly accepted that not all rating points are equal in their value to advertisers. Agencies and advertisers put increasing pressure on broadcasters to deliver particular criteria: programmes dayparts centre breaks position in break etc. Whilst the industry gives differential value to these the only mechanism to put a value on aspects of airtime quality has been that of demand. This paper outlines a new way of valuing airtime which measures one aspect of quality on a break-by-break basis and can be used to significantly improve the effectiveness of advertising.