TV research does not measure peoples' actual contact with advertisements but rather the "opportunity to see" commercials. This paper addresses this issue and looks at various factors which may affect the chances of an opportunity actually being taken. Two new research studies are described along with some of their key findings. These are The Carat Foretel Advertising Recall Study - an examination of the recall of over 200 commercials within 2 to 3 hours of transmission and The Carat Foretel Attention Study - a programme of proprietary research which establishes quality of viewing to thousands of UK TV programmes. The conclusion of this paper is that many media buyers' prejudices about advertising effectiveness are either less important than had previously been thought or are actually wrong. The main factor influencing the recall of TV commercials, aside from the creative impact of the commercials themselves, is found to be the attention paid to the surrounding programmes. Whilst this conclusion may seem blindingly obvious to many readers of this paper, it is an issue widely debated by media practitioners. As the debate goes on, the majority of TV campaigns are planned and bought as if all ratings are equal. The Carat Foretel programme of research demonstrates that this is not so.
Peoplemeters are conventionally described as measuring minute by minute audiences viewing television transmissions. This raises issues of the meaning of âviewingâ, the definition of a minute audience and what kind of audiences are to be measured. The paper addresses these issues and the extent to which total peoplemeter systems can measure audiences precisely and accurately, now and in the future, and supply the data which the market needs. This involves reviewing the operation of peoplemeter systems in terms of ability to monitor reception hardware - the respondent task and its accuracy analysis conventions and time units measuring audience reaction achieving representative samples data requirements by type of measurement, type of station and audience sub-groups. The current limitations of peoplemeter systems are assessed. The implications of future broadcasting developments are considered leading to conclusions on requirements for future research systems and the potential role for peoplemeters.
This paper begins with a very brief summary of new developments in the television medium and their effect on the likely stracture of the television market going into the next century from the perspective of the viewer and the advertising industry. We explore a hypothesis that by the year 2010 at least, the shape of the television market will be very different. Thus, new challenges will face the market research industry in its continuing attempts to satisfy the needs and requirements of European broadcasters and advertisers. Whilst it is now clear that new metering technology is required to cope with these technical developments in the television medium, we argue that the various parties that currently fund television audience research will have increasingly divergent measurement requirements in future. Some may also have new means at their disposal whereby they can directly satisfy the advertising industry, who, in its turn, may have different reporting needs and requirements in future. The paper then considers the size of the current market for television audience measurement research in Europe and asks whether sufficient funds will be still be available in the future to cover the necessary research and development into new audience measurement technology. The paper concludes with some hints for a new audience measurement system in which there is a supplementary role for a basic utility meter.
As background to planning for the multi-channel interactive future we address two linked questions : What is the demand for different type of programmes? How much would viewers be willing to pay directly for their habitual channels? The paper draws on the wide range of well-established, empirical evidence about consumer behaviour in the UK and other television markets. We note the underlying regularity of much of this behaviour, which is reviewed in the broader context of consumer behaviour in markets for other goods and services. Our research on viewersâ willingness to pay, involving a single-price package, demonstrated a remarkable price inelasticity for UK terrestrial channels, reflecting their high reach and hours viewed. UK (and other) television is currently underpriced. We conclude that rapid, fundamental change is unlikely to occur in the broadcasting as in other markets in response to new technological opportunities, and that UK viewers will continue to want to watch their current range of programme types. Viewers are prepared to pay for quality services they want to watch, including both existing and new channels.
In this research we recalibrated the peoplemeter in the AGB McNair New Zealand Peoplemeter Panel to produce second by second ratings, instead of the usual one minute ratings. We looked at audience ebb and flow during programmes, and, in particular, during commercial breaks. In contrast to previous research into audience behaviour during ad breaks, the peoplemeter is entirely unobtrusive and potentially measures what people actually do instead of what they say they do. The audience levels show a surprising amount of change, not just during commercial breaks and between programmes but even during programmes. A number of programmes show considerable build in audience in the first ten minutes. On the other hand, soaps, for instance, show strong viewer loyalty, even during advertising breaks. One of the major purposes of this research was to study television audience levels during commercial breaks. We show that television ratings drop during commercial breaks, but only by 5%. Furthermore, we show that viewers are potentially exposed to 90% of the content of the commercial break shown on the channel they were tuned to prior to the start of the break. We also show that ad avoidance is largely done at random, that is, there are very few personal or household characteristics that correlate with ad avoidance behaviour. Furthermore, it appears that characteristics of the ad break, such as number of ads in the break and length of ads, have an affect on the ad break ratings, but they are not substantial. Lastly, it is evident that viewers sense the timing pattern of ad breaks and their ad avoidance behaviour is dictated somewhat by this sense of patterning.
This paper presents the results flowing from a large database (100 television commercials) developed over a 10 year period. The database measures the in-market awareness and likeability of all television commercials in South Africa, within two to three weeks after their first appearance. The ability of television commercials to get into memory has halved over a period of 8 years in South Africa. A trend that possibly also exists in other countries. This paper will also demonstrate that the variable which most influences the ability for a commercial to get into memory is its likeability. If people are becoming less attentive and the variable that influences the penetrative ability of advertisements most is likeability, then one needs to have an operational definition of likeability. A model that both describes likeability and which is a predictor of likeability; using introspective measures about the commercial's communication elements, is shown. Since this is the first time this data has been presented outside South Africa, considerable care has been taken to ensure that the terminological differences that may exist are highlighted and the American and European sources of methodologies are discussed.
This paper begins by describing the development and methodology of RAJAR - the UK's first jointly agreed audience research system for radio, setting this in the context of the structure and needs of the two broadcast sectors - BBC and commercial. It then focuses on a number of key areas of technical challenge reflecting the complexity of the present and future radio environment. In particular there is discussion of four issues: sampling methodology in the face of multiple overlaps of local station areas measurement problems given the growth in station choice issues relating to reporting and information reliability operational issues associated with a very large measurement service. The paper concludes by suggesting that the future promises further challenges and suggests that even if harmonisation of methodology is not in prospect, at the very least radio researchers from different countries should compare notes.
There is increasing interest in the "Digital Superhighwayâ. How will TV audience measurement cope with this radical change in the medium? Many believe that the fast approaching fractionated and mobile television environment will necessitate a radically new measurement system that is at once portable, passive and people based. In an effort to find out what is going on in television audience measurement in other major countries around the world, BBM Bureau of Measurement commissioned New Electronic Media Science of New York to conduct a worldwide survey. The survey was designed to find out the methods currently in use for television audience measurement, levels of satisfaction with these present methods and the extent to which countries other than the U.S., Canada and Australia are moving towards passive people meters, portable or otherwise. This paper presents the results of the worldwide telephone survey. It appears that the push-button people meter is at the zenith of its development cycle, with systems operating in 30 of the 34 countries examined. Most of the systems have been introduced in the last three years, but a third of the people meter countries are already considering a shift to passive measurement -- a move that has strong support in almost all the countries surveyed, especially those with more experience of the conventional push button people meter.
The paper discusses the needs of the advertisers from media research in the dramatically changed TV environment many expect to happen already in the next few years. The key change of the TV medium will be fragmentation caused by a multi-channel environment, interactivity, split-screens and TV screens with windows. The consequences for TV audience measurement will be dramatic as well as current people meter panels will not be sufficient any longer to report the fragmented audiences. Various approaches to handle this situation will be discussed although none of them looks really satisfactory for the time being. The research community is called for to develop the most suitable methods. Finally, the roles of the TV stations, the advertisers, and the research suppliers are reviewed. Particularly the TV stations will depend on proper audience data acceptable for both their advertiser clients as well as useful for their programming management. While early preparation for the TV environment of a few years away is important, this must not reduce the interest of the TV world to get top quality data for the current business. This means that the efforts of the past years to upgrade the quality of audience research in Europe and to harmonize the methods must be continued.
This paper sets out to summarise and to invite comment and criticism of the recently published 2nd edition of the EBU guidelines "Towards Harmonization of Television Audience Measurement Systems". It has been a collaborative venture involving representatives of all parties to the broadcast media business, from both the broadcasters themselves and from both the advertising agency and advertiser sectors. The principal emphasis of the paper is on what is new to the 2nd edition: The organisational principles desirable for a national system, to obtain wide-ranging user group participative consultation, methodological transparency and even-handed data access arrangements, Rather more than in the first edition of how to collect reliable and valid TV viewing data, via the peoplemeter as a device for registering the viewing behaviour of individual household members. Rather more than in the first edition on the issues of principle in the data reporting arrangements of a national system, and the low-cost powerful PC-based data access options open to the user. The challenges that lie around the comer. In particular we draw attention to the more immediate issues on which a consensus within the media research community has still to be reached, including: Selection of panel homes - probability procedures v panel controls. Enforced panel turnover. The definition of "viewing" Editing rules. Reporting algorithms. â Comprehensiveness of Channel reporting. Access to data, both at an aggregated and disaggregated level. Issues of standardisation in reporting conventions.
Currently, many companies are designing and testing multi-channel interactive television systems. In many of these designs, the research systems are envisioned to be integrated as part of the medium itself. Such integrated research systems could dramatically alter the way in which television advertising is used, bought and sold. In this paper, we propose a formal theoretical framework. First, we show how this framework encompasses the traditional research systems for television program ratings as well as television commercial ratings. Typically, the traditional research systems are represented by simple structures, for which some of the information content is traditionally summarized in the form of 'ratings'. Next, we show how the proposed interactive television systems would fit under this framework. Typically, the new systems are represented by information-rich complex structures. Many different types of services (such as video on demand, home shopping services, on-line information services, video-games, etc.) are likely to be offered on these interactive systems. Because of the disparate natures of these services, it may be necessary to have a number of summary statistics above and beyond the traditional 'rating'. The new interactive systems will not replace the traditional broadcast systems immediately or entirely. Instead, there will be an a long period of ten to fifteen years or longer in which the old and the new will co-exist side by side. Some of the anticipated problems and frictions in the interregnum will be discussed. We believe that it is important and feasible to set research standards for intermedia comparisons, and we will describe some of our current work in this area.
This paper takes as its starting point the profusion of channel choices that are being bandied about in the media, and asks whether there will be any real change in the way that viewers view in the next few years. Beyond the seven year marker, there are indications that both the opportunities and the environment will change dramatically, and this paper therefore also looks beyond 2001 in considering how these changes will impact audience measurement. Nevertheless, for the television business, the next seven years will bring an acceleration of the process of change, driven by opportunities created by technology and globalisation. The impact on audience research will be small in the immediate future, but it is likely that the changing nature of the use of the TV set will bring major changes beyond 2001.