To the point: what lasts long ...
As of today, Wednesday, June 19, 2013, it has been 170 calendar days since data on Swiss television viewing habits was last available. To be more precise: The data was available, but first they refused to publish it twice, and then they were no longer allowed to publish it. Now, however, nothing seems to stand in the way of its release.
At least that's what the latest Mediapulse press release says. You can tell from my wording that I have slight doubts, because what happened behind and in front of the scenes during these 170 days is unbelievable and actually unimaginable. In the eyes of foreign observers, Switzerland has now mutated into a laughing stock in TV research. This after many years of successful and forward-looking television research.
How could this happen? The point here is not to analyze the research details in order to discover any methodological inconsistencies or errors. This must be done. But our media researchers - also with the involvement of foreign experts - must take this into their own hands. For me, it's more about fundamentally scrutinizing the whole story in order to find out why this debacle could happen in the first place. For me, there are four points that led to the chaos.
Firstly, it's the Swiss urge for perfection that keeps preventing us from finding practical and pragmatic solutions. We always want everything and everything at once. And then, of course, it should also be perfect. But this is often an impossibility. Less would often be more, because there is definitely no such thing as the egg-laying woolly milk sow, even if we often hope that this species will be discovered somewhere.
Secondly, the limitations of a joint industry committee, an entity in which all relevant market partners (media, intermediaries and customers) are embedded, become apparent. This usually works well as long as everything runs smoothly. When things start to go wrong, the limits of such a structure are reached - the individual interests are too different.
A lack of experts. Such a giant box would have to be accompanied by a high-level committee of proven and uninvolved (!) experts. And if there are no such experts in Switzerland, you have to look for them abroad. A user commission, however optimally composed, cannot fulfill such a task. Its well-understood important role is a different one. It must ensure that it is possible to work with the results and the necessary tools in a simple and practical manner.
Fourthly, there are two missing Cs: control and communication. These two are crucially linked. The Uvek and Bakom seem to have fulfilled their supervisory duties very late. However, it is quite possible and even probable that they were already active earlier, but nobody knew this. Just as many other things were not known. Communication means proactively disseminating information and not passively administering it like a federal office.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief [email protected]
