NM3413 Audience Analysis

1. 7 NM3413 Audience Analysis AUDIENCEMEASUREMENT

2. OVERVIEW • Research methodologies • Rating systems • Measurement techniques • Measurement errors • Online audience measurement

3. Measuring Audiences Audience-as-Mass and Audience-as-Market (Target group / consumer) “The notion of the audience is critical to the economic structure of profit-driven, advertiser-supported media.

4. Audience Research and the Ratings Methodologies • Survey • Interview • Test • Observation Conducts studies of consumer preferences, desires, and exposure to a particular media text.

5. Audience Research and the Ratings Methodologies • Survey • Interview • Test • Observation * Ratings system * • Arbitron in broadcast radio. • Nielsen in television and cable TV ratings (and increasingly in online audience measurement).

6. Audience Research and the Ratings • aims to estimate the size and composition of the audience as clearly and accurately as possible. • all information about audiences is meaningless without interpretation or judgments on behalf of those who gather and use this information. • the core of the ratings system is a highly simplified method of counting who is in the audience for a particular television program at a particular moment. • the ratings operationalize viewing by quantifying audience responses. The ratings structure essentially reduces audience viewing to a simplistic binary choice: watching or not watching. • Nielsen does collect quite a bit of other information about television viewers, such as demographic details (age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, etc.)

7. Measuring Audience Viewership • Nielsen measures viewing in four 15-minute time blocks. So if you have your TV set turned to a particular channel for a majority of that 15-minute time period, Nielsen counts you as having been exposed to that particular program for that quarter hour block. • Use the household as the unit of analysis

8. Nielsen’s Measurement Techniques • Diaries • Household meters • People-meters • Portable peoplemeter (PPM)

9. Nielsen’s Measurement Techniques • Diaries Thousands of diaries are distributed by Nielsen to generate viewing estimates in local TV markets across the country. The diary is a small paper pamphlet that records viewing of a single TV set over the course of one week. PROS: the technique provides wealth of data. CONS: the quality of information depends upon the willingness of the viewer to put in a significant amount of work to maintain an accurate snapshot of viewing within the household.

10. Nielsen’s Measurement Techniques • Household meters The household meter is a small electronic box that sits on top of the TV and measures what channel the set is tuned to at any given moment. The box is plugged into a telephone line and the data are downloaded by Nielsen at the end of the day. PROS: it requires no human intervention to record viewing and is therefore a much more reliable tool for generating the ratings. CONS: any indication of who was in the room during viewing is missing.

11. Nielsen’s Measurement Techniques 3. People-meters Peoplemeters are household meters with an extra remote control added. Using the remote, viewers enter a special code for themselves when they are in the room with the TV set. They press another button when they leave the room. PROS: giving Nielsen a tally of who is watching a particular program. CONS: peoplemeters have not been terribly effective at measuring the viewing behaviors of children.

12. Nielsen’s Measurement Techniques 4. Portable peoplemeter (PPM) The PPM consists of a small device the size of a pager, which is worn at all times by viewers in a Nielsen household. Small inaudible tones, embedded within both television and radio programming, can be picked up by the PPM, which indicates that a person is within range of a particular media program. PROS: It is nearly completely passive, requiring little effort on behalf of viewers, and it measures media exposure both inside and outside of the household. CONS: still in the experimental stage.

13. Important Audience Numbers and Their Computation Number of TV HHs watching a program or stationTotal TV HHs Rating (R) = HUT = Share = Gross Rating Points (GRP) = R1 + R2 + R3 + ... Rn Cost Per Thousand (CPM) = Cost Per Point (CPP) = Cost of Advertisement (S)Audience Rating (R) Households Using Television Total TV HHs Number of TV HHs watching a program or station HUTs Cost of Advertisement ($) x 1,000 Audience Size

14. Measurement errors • Sampling error • Conceptual error • Nonresponse error

15. Measurement errors • Sampling error The goal of any survey is to obtain the lowest sampling error possible to be confident of the estimate that you generate. The larger you sample size, the less likely it is that your estimate will deviate from the true rating for a program.

16. Measurement errors 2. Conceptual error An error that results from conceptualizing the notion of television viewing in a particular way, by sampling television households instead of individual viewers.

17. Measurement errors 3. Nonresponse error About half of all households asked to join the Nielsen ratings survey refuse to do so. This could very quickly become a major source of bias in the Nielsen sample, because those households that agree to become part of the sample may have inherent qualities that make their members different from other viewers.

18. Online Audience Measures • Internet webpages keep logs of every visitor to access that page, and these records, called server logs, allow for passive monitoring of the online audience. • Server logs record the date and time of access, what page referred the user to that page, “cookies” stored in the web browser software (identification files) and the IP (internet protocol) address of that user, which provides general location information. • More active methods of online audience measurement include online surveys, though these techniques often attract individuals who seek them out, thus potentially skewing the sample. • Electronic measurement panels: provide a mixture of active surveys and passive online metering. • Software is installed on panelists’ computers that precisely tracks their online movements and communicates this information back to the measurement company.

19. References: Bencharongkij, Yubol. Audience Analysis. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn, 1991. Sullivan, John L. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2013.