Abstract:

Two methods of measuring television audiences are used in the Netherlands: 1. The electronic Peoplemeter, for which respondents have to press buttons to report their actual viewing behaviour and 2. The Scanner-method, which uses the day-after telephone interview to collect the data. In the following paper the results based on these two methods will be compared. The comparison will concentrate on the measuring of the reach-figures of commercials. We will discuss the results on total reach, cumulative reach and average reach. Although there are great differences in the figures, many of them can be explained by the different definitions used. After uniforming the definitions the remaining differences must be explained by the way of measuring itself. This clears up the fundamentals of both methods. If some effort is made to bring the definitions in line, both systems will be very well to use side by side of each other. The Peoplemeter produces elaborated television-data, the Scanner offers multi-media data.