Euro 08: SRG helps itself
TV research During the European Championships, out-of-home TV usage will be surveyed in at least four ways. Mediapulse, which is responsible for TV research, spent a long time preparing for this special challenge.
TV research During the European Championships, out-of-home TV usage will be surveyed in at least four ways.16 UBS arenas and additional public viewing arenas in the four host cities have been set up for Euro 08, so more people than ever will be watching the matches outside their own four walls: in public places and restaurants. For the UBS arenas alone, organizer Perron 8 expects 1 to 2 million visitors, depending on the weather and the success of the Swiss team, which poses problems for television research in Switzerland. This is because the Telecontrol (TC) measurement system used is connected to TV sets in private households and does not record TV usage outside the home or on cell phones. TC will therefore only be able to capture a fraction of total TV usage, especially as viewers include numerous fans who have traveled from abroad and are not captured by the TC system anyway.
Mediapulse AG, which is responsible for TV research, has been preparing for this special challenge for a long time. And a year ago, it also announced that it would be paying particular attention to out-of-home TV usage during Euro 08. But five days before the sporting event, CEO Manuel Dähler simply said: "We do indeed have certain intentions regarding out-of-home TV use during Euro 08. However, we will only communicate further details once the project has been successful. Maybe it won't succeed ..."
This hesitation is of no use to SRG, which needs daily ratings for out-of-home use. "We asked Mediapulse for a survey, but it didn't materialize. So we organized a survey ourselves," says SF Director Ingrid Deltenre. Specifically, the market research institute Demoscope was commissioned to conduct a daily telephone survey of 350 people across Switzerland during the European Championship to find out where and how (TV, public viewing, mobile TV, Internet, radio ...) they watched the matches. "The figures will then be made available to us the following day. We will also communicate some of them," said Deltenre. However, care will have to be taken to ensure that the figures are not mixed up. It is already clear that the demoscope results, including those on TV usage at home, will not match the more precise TC household measurements. "We are less concerned with absolute figures than with trends and being able to show the approximate difference between TV usage at home and away from home," says Deltenre.
Publisuisse, which sells special TV advertising offers for the UBS arenas, also needs figures. However, Manuela Gerber, who is responsible for the European Championships, relies on three other surveys. Firstly, Perron 8 counts visitors on site using turnstiles at the arena entrances. Secondly, people are employed to estimate the proportion of fans arriving from abroad based on car numbers, flags and outfits. And finally, Publisuisse obtains data from Mediapulse. As part of its basic research, the latter has the Konso Institute survey around 115 people daily on media use anyway - and during the Euro, Konso simply adds a few specific questions. Unlike Demoscope, however, the Konso results are only available after the European Championships.
And: Mediapulse had already had the Konso questionnaire supplemented once before, during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse also took advantage of the fact that TV usage can also be measured with the mobile Radiocontrol watches - even outside the home. A comparison between TC and RC measurements also showed that up to 20 percent additional TV usage took place outside the home during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse will presumably carry out such a parallel evaluation this time too.
Markus Knöpfli
Mediapulse AG, which is responsible for TV research, has been preparing for this special challenge for a long time. And a year ago, it also announced that it would be paying particular attention to out-of-home TV usage during Euro 08. But five days before the sporting event, CEO Manuel Dähler simply said: "We do indeed have certain intentions regarding out-of-home TV use during Euro 08. However, we will only communicate further details once the project has been successful. Maybe it won't succeed ..."
This hesitation is of no use to SRG, which needs daily ratings for out-of-home use. "We asked Mediapulse for a survey, but it didn't materialize. So we organized a survey ourselves," says SF Director Ingrid Deltenre. Specifically, the market research institute Demoscope was commissioned to conduct a daily telephone survey of 350 people across Switzerland during the European Championship to find out where and how (TV, public viewing, mobile TV, Internet, radio ...) they watched the matches. "The figures will then be made available to us the following day. We will also communicate some of them," said Deltenre. However, care will have to be taken to ensure that the figures are not mixed up. It is already clear that the demoscope results, including those on TV usage at home, will not match the more precise TC household measurements. "We are less concerned with absolute figures than with trends and being able to show the approximate difference between TV usage at home and away from home," says Deltenre.
Publisuisse, which sells special TV advertising offers for the UBS arenas, also needs figures. However, Manuela Gerber, who is responsible for the European Championships, relies on three other surveys. Firstly, Perron 8 counts visitors on site using turnstiles at the arena entrances. Secondly, people are employed to estimate the proportion of fans arriving from abroad based on car numbers, flags and outfits. And finally, Publisuisse obtains data from Mediapulse. As part of its basic research, the latter has the Konso Institute survey around 115 people daily on media use anyway - and during the Euro, Konso simply adds a few specific questions. Unlike Demoscope, however, the Konso results are only available after the European Championships.
And: Mediapulse had already had the Konso questionnaire supplemented once before, during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse also took advantage of the fact that TV usage can also be measured with the mobile Radiocontrol watches - even outside the home. A comparison between TC and RC measurements also showed that up to 20 percent additional TV usage took place outside the home during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse will presumably carry out such a parallel evaluation this time too.
Markus Knöpfli
