Measuring audiences: television

Measuring TV audiences with diaries

A diary survey is done by choosing a random sample of
households, and sending interviewers to visit those
households. When a household agrees to co-operate in the
survey (with co-operating rates ranging from about 30% of
contacted households in rich western countries, up to about
95% in developing countries), the interviewer usually leaves
one diary for each TV set in the household. This is different
from radio surveys, which use one diary per person - because
people usually watch TV in groups. A diary normally runs for
one week or two weeks. Often there are several "practice
days" at the beginning that are not used to generate statistics.
Television diaries are similar to radio diaries. The main
difference is that, while there is one radio diary for
each person in a household, there is usually one TV
diary for each TV set. The idea is that the diary is
placed on top of the TV set, stays there for a week, and
whoever watches a program on that set fills in the
diary to show what channels they watched, at what
times.
Each double-page opening of the diary usually has a
large table. The rows show all the quarter-hours of the
day, while there is one column for each TV channel in
the survey area. People indicate their viewing by
ticking the box for the channel they watched, during
each quarter hour. Such a diary doesn't show which
people in the household were watching: the tick only
means that somebody was watching. Another way of
doing this is to enter in the box for the channel and
quarter-hour not a tick but a number showing how
many people were watching.
A still more elaborate way is to write the initial of each
viewer in the box. On the front page of the diary is
recorded the fact that (say) person A is a man aged 35-
44, B is a woman aged 25-34, and so on. Though this
sounds simple enough, when I organized this type of
diary survey the results were rather messy. People
didn't try very hard to co-operate.
You can get much more accurate data from telephone
(or personal interview) diaries, but people can only
remember their viewing for a few days. This is usually a
much more expensive way to do a diary survey, but if
distances are large and almost everybody has a
telephone (as in Australia) it can be suitable for surveys
of rural audiences.
Obviously it would be very convenient if the program titles
could be printed in the diary, as well as the times. In New
Zealand, when there were only 2 channels, we experimented
with diaries showing programs as well as times. By
comparing data from diaries that showed only times and
data from diaries that also listed programs, it was clear that
the program-based diary was more accurate. However, we
didn't use the program-based diaries after the trial, because
of problems of (a) finding out the program times far enough
in advance to print and distribute the diaries, and (b) TV
channels changing their advertised schedules.
Measuring TV audiences with meters
Unlike a diary survey, where the respondents are different each
week (or each two weeks, for a 2-week diary) meter surveys use
panels of people for months at a time - anything from 6 months
to 2 years. That's because of the expense of installing meters.
When a household agrees to co-operate (usually for some
reward, such as guaranteed maintenance for their TV set), a
technician comes to the home and wires a meter to each TV set.
In countries where most homes have a connected telephone, the
meter is also connected to the phone line. The meter
automatically records the channel the TV set is tuned to, minute
by minute. In the early hours of the morning, the research
company's computer automatically dials the meter, which sends
that household's viewing data for the previous night.
This is done in sets of 3 numbers:
– channel number - starting time - stopping time
– ...repeated as many times as different channels were
switched on.
After ringing all the households in the sample (often 300
to 400 per city) the computer has all the previous night's
data, and software automatically calculates the
percentage of homes watching each channel at each time.
Buyers of the diary data - TV channel owners, advertising
agencies, and large advertisers - are then sent a fax or
email with the previous night's viewing data.
That's the simplest version, using "set-meters". But most
countries now use "peoplemeters". As well as showing which
channels each TV set was tuned to, at which times, the people
living in the household are asked to indicate their presence
while watching TV. Typically, the peoplemeter sits on top of the
TV set. A common type of peoplemeter has 8 lights on its front,
numbered 1 to 8. The meter has its own remote control, with 8
buttons, one for each person in the household, and the others
for their occasional guests. So when button 1 is pressed, that
tells the meter that (say) a man aged between 35 and 44 is
watching. Guests are prompted to enter their gender and age
group.
When the TV set is switched on, all the lights start
flashing. A new model flashes up the message "Who is
present?" As this is annoying for the viewers, they are
likely to press their personal buttons to stop the flashing.
When the TV set is on, and nobody has pressed a button
for about 45 minutes, all the lights start flashing again. If
nobody then presses a personal button, the meter
assumes they're all out of the room, and doesn't record
any viewing. But if at least one person presses a button,
the meter keeps recording that viewing.
Unlike the setmeter, which is completely automatic, the
peoplemeter depends on the co-operation of viewers. Do people
actually remember to press their buttons, or do they just press any
button to stop the lights flashing? To demonstrate to their skeptical
customers that peoplemeters give accurate data, the research
companies do manual checking - such as by ringing up members of
their panel to ask what they are watching at that moment, then
comparing the answers with the peoplemeter data. From the
figures I've seen, compliance levels are quite good - correct around
90% of the time. The major problem is when people who were
watching a program leave the room (e.g. to answer a phone call)
and forget to un-press their button. This produces audience figures
that are a little too high.
The most serious problem with peoplemeters is the
representativeness of the panels. Often, less than half
the households asked to co-operate actually do so, which
raises the question of what is unusual about households
that are in the panel. From data I've seen, the wealthier
and better-educated households are often under-
represented. As such people tend to spend less time
watching TV, this also produces a slight overestimate of
audience sizes. Though TV stations don't care about that
(they like to see large audiences reported), potential
advertisers are more skeptical.
The most serious problem with peoplemeters is the
representativeness of the panels. Often, less than half
the households asked to co-operate actually do so, which
raises the question of what is unusual about households
that are in the panel. From data I've seen, the wealthier
and better-educated households are often under-
represented. As such people tend to spend less time
watching TV, this also produces a slight overestimate of
audience sizes. Though TV stations don't care about that
(they like to see large audiences reported), potential
advertisers are more skeptical.
• An emerging problem, in western countries, is what type of viewing is
actually counted. There are now many ways to watch a TV programs...
• Broadcasts from local channels, received through an aerial.
• Broadcasts from international channels, from a satellite dish.
• Viewing a TV program on a computer.
• Programs that are recorded on videotape or DVD, and viewed later by
playing back the recording.
• The same can be done with a "personal video recorder" or Tivo. With
this, you can watch a program in "delayed time" - e.g. watching the first
half while the second half is still being broadcast.
• Another emerging problem is the very small portable TV sets now
becoming popular in countries such as Japan. These cannot be
connected to fixed phone lines, and any peoplemeters could be larger
than the TV set itself. (This is why peoplemeters are not used for radio.)
All these possibilities make it difficult to record
viewing: difficult, both in a technical sense, and in
deciding exactly what should count as viewing. The
convention is that recorded viewing is counted only if it
is played back within one week.
• In Australia in 1991, the diary system was superseded by a
meter system. This was an excellent opportunity to find out the
problems with diaries. There were several clear differences.
Audiences at evening peak times didn't change much,
particularly for series programs; they were marginally lower.
• But audiences in the middle of the day were much higher with
meters than with diaries. The reason seemed to be that midday
programs were sort of trashy, and perhaps people who were
watching TV around midday were ashamed of watching those
programs, and didn't want other people in the household to
see that viewing in the shared diary.
The other change with the introduction of
peoplemeters was that late-night programs
now had much larger audiences. It seems that
when diaries were used, the late-night viewers
either forgot to fill them in, or couldn't be
bothered.
 Measures of TV audiences
• From the raw data of the numbers of
households or people viewing TV channels,
these measures are calculated:
– Ratings (of households and/or people)
– Households Using Television (HUTs)
– TARPs (Target Audience Rating Points)
– Reach and frequency
– Program rankings
– Audience share
Ratings
– People ratings are also a percentage, but of people, not households.
Unlike radio audience surveys,which don't include children under a
certain age (around 10 to 15), TV surveys usually include everybody
(except babies). People ratings can also be based on demographic
groups: age groups, sexes, occupation types, and so on.
– HUT (Households Using Television) figures are simply ratings (not
people ratings, though) for all channels combined. An HUT figure of
50 means that 50% of households were watching TV in the survey
area. This can be either an average across a long time period, or a
figure at a particular time.
– TARPs (Target Audience Rating Points are used mainly by advertisers.
They apply moe to commercials than programs.
– Reach is the number or percentage of people who see
that program or commercial, or watch that channel in a
particular time zone. For example, a program might
have an average people rating of 10%, but a reach of
20% - which means that 10% of people in the survey
area were watching it on average, but across the whole
time it was being broadcast, 20% saw some part of it.
Divide the people rating by the reach to find out the
proportion of the program that the average viewer saw:
in that example, it's 10 out of 20, which is half: i.e. the
average person who watched the program saw half of it.
– Frequency also applies to commercials. For example, a common myth
(not supported by much empirical data) is that the average frequency
for a TV commercial should be 3: in other words, the average person
should see the commercial 3 times before rushing off to buy the
advertised product. (In fact, people just don't behave like that.)
– Program rankings are popular with people who don't understand the
ratings system (e.g. many journalists). These are often reported in the
press, along the lines of "Channel 28 had 6 of the top 10 programs
last week". Such figures can be quite misleading. A channel with 6 of
the top 10 programs probably had an audience share of around 30%,
not the 60% you might assume. That's because in one week a channel
might broadcast around 150 programs, and most of the viewing was
to the bottom 140, not the top 10.
• Audience share can be confusing. If a channel has 30%
audience share, that doesn't mean that 30% of people
watch it. A share figure is a share of person-hours, not of
people. A 30% share means that, of every 100 hours that
people in the survey area spent watching TV, 30% of those
hours were with that channel. So if you add up all the share
figures for every channel, the total is always 100%. It's also
possible to calculate share figures for specific time periods,
but it usually doesn't make sense to calculate shares for an
individual program unless all channels in the area have
programs starting and finishing at the same time.