Radio and TV research in transition
Market Research: The distribution channels for radio and TV are growing rapidly, and consumption is becoming more mobile. This poses major challenges for radio and TV research worldwide—and presents the advertising industry with difficult decisions.
Market research The distribution channels for radio and TV are increasing rapidly and consumption is becoming more mobile. This poses major challenges for radio and TV research worldwide and difficult decisions for the advertising industry. There are several prerequisites for the Radiocontrol clock to be able to record the radio consumption of its wearer. The most important: the radio signal must be audible; the watch has not yet been able to register radio consumption via headphones. In addition, the RC system only records live listening; recorded broadcasts, podcasts or broadcasts that are received with a delay for technical reasons (such as Internet radio) cannot be correctly assigned, and in the case of television, only what is consumed live or recorded on video is measured. However, it is not possible to determine when which program is watched from video. And the same applies to IPTV as to Internet radio and even more so to TV consumption via cell phone.
Most of the discussions in recent weeks about the possibilities and limitations of current radio and TV research should be seen against this backdrop. The discussion in this country is exacerbated by the widespread suspicion that the SRG, as the previous sponsor of radio and TV research, only measures usage that is of benefit to itself.
On October 25, Manuel Dähler, Managing Director of Mediapulse (ex-SRG research service), had the opportunity to broaden the field of vision of IGEM members at an event organized by the Interessengemeinschaft elektronischer Medien (IGEM), the electronic media interest group. He pointed out that radio and TV research is currently facing several problems worldwide. On the one hand, consumers own more and more devices with which radio and TV reception is possible anytime and anywhere. This gives them additional time to listen to the radio or watch television - primarily via headphones. The proportion of time-shifted consumption is therefore likely to increase (Internet, podcast, PVR).
However, according to Dähler, new questions also arise with regard to distribution, as the transmission paths are increasing by leaps and bounds: there are various standards for mobile and a large number of digital standards. Although these do not represent an insurmountable obstacle to measurement per se, no one currently knows which standard will prevail - and which should be measured.
And finally, a lot is also changing on the provider side: radio podcasts, for example, are no longer only offered by radio stations. And television is no longer the domain of traditional TV stations either. Furthermore, some of these offerings are interactive (TV on demand, BettyTV).
The main questions according to Dähler are therefore: What of this total radio and TV usage should be measured at all? And what weight should be given to media consumption that is not measured? But above all: What counts as usage at all? Does downloading a radio podcast already count as radio use - or only when it is actually listened to?
Experience with video shows that this is not the case: For every ten hours of video recorded, only one to two hours are actually used later, said Dähler. He estimates the effective use of podcasts to be somewhat higher. Based on this, however, he pointed out a danger that media providers are most likely to fall victim to: That people want to research which channels consumers use to get their content, instead of surveying what they actually end up using of the (collected) content.
Dähler pointed out another problem: even if time-shifted consumption could be measured, it was still necessary to clarify what should be counted as live consumption. Until now, the rule of thumb for local TV reruns has been: TV usage until two o'clock in the morning is counted as usage on the previous day, the rest is part of the following day. But how should this be handled with podcasts or PVR recordings?
All this shows: Every media measurement inevitably lags behind technical developments. In addition, a single measuring device can only collect fractions of the actual usage. "In future, we will have to combine data from different measurement sources in order to find out what TV users are doing, for example," said Dähler. He hopes to gain interesting insights into TV and radio consumption once RC and TC data can be linked with data from the new Net Metrix internet research (see below).
However, Dähler also made it clear that not all media consumption can be measured. Decisions about what to measure and what not to measure are indispensable. In Germany, for example, it was agreed not to measure out-of-home TV usage for the time being. "We will also have to make such decisions," said Dähler, but immediately added: "Fortunately, these decisions will soon be made by a foundation." In fact, the research foundation that is yet to be established will enable a more democratic consensus to be reached than before. However, the history of the new internet research Net Metrix shows how difficult such a process can be.
Moving with the timesAccording to Manuel Dähler
Mediapulse is constantly adapting its surveys to current developments. For example, the basic research Establishment Survey now also asks about radio consumption with headphones. Furthermore, the new generation of RC clocks can record radio consumption via headphones thanks to radio signals from an adapter plug on the headphone cable. And in 2007, data from the TC and RC panels can be combined with data from Internet research for the first time. This will be supplemented by a time-budget study, which is currently in the field and is intended to provide information on mobile and time-shifted radio and TV use, among other things. Mediapulse is also planning tests for cinema and ad screen measurement with a small series of multifunctional media watches.
Markus Knöpfli
Most of the discussions in recent weeks about the possibilities and limitations of current radio and TV research should be seen against this backdrop. The discussion in this country is exacerbated by the widespread suspicion that the SRG, as the previous sponsor of radio and TV research, only measures usage that is of benefit to itself.
On October 25, Manuel Dähler, Managing Director of Mediapulse (ex-SRG research service), had the opportunity to broaden the field of vision of IGEM members at an event organized by the Interessengemeinschaft elektronischer Medien (IGEM), the electronic media interest group. He pointed out that radio and TV research is currently facing several problems worldwide. On the one hand, consumers own more and more devices with which radio and TV reception is possible anytime and anywhere. This gives them additional time to listen to the radio or watch television - primarily via headphones. The proportion of time-shifted consumption is therefore likely to increase (Internet, podcast, PVR).
However, according to Dähler, new questions also arise with regard to distribution, as the transmission paths are increasing by leaps and bounds: there are various standards for mobile and a large number of digital standards. Although these do not represent an insurmountable obstacle to measurement per se, no one currently knows which standard will prevail - and which should be measured.
And finally, a lot is also changing on the provider side: radio podcasts, for example, are no longer only offered by radio stations. And television is no longer the domain of traditional TV stations either. Furthermore, some of these offerings are interactive (TV on demand, BettyTV).
The main questions according to Dähler are therefore: What of this total radio and TV usage should be measured at all? And what weight should be given to media consumption that is not measured? But above all: What counts as usage at all? Does downloading a radio podcast already count as radio use - or only when it is actually listened to?
Experience with video shows that this is not the case: For every ten hours of video recorded, only one to two hours are actually used later, said Dähler. He estimates the effective use of podcasts to be somewhat higher. Based on this, however, he pointed out a danger that media providers are most likely to fall victim to: That people want to research which channels consumers use to get their content, instead of surveying what they actually end up using of the (collected) content.
Dähler pointed out another problem: even if time-shifted consumption could be measured, it was still necessary to clarify what should be counted as live consumption. Until now, the rule of thumb for local TV reruns has been: TV usage until two o'clock in the morning is counted as usage on the previous day, the rest is part of the following day. But how should this be handled with podcasts or PVR recordings?
All this shows: Every media measurement inevitably lags behind technical developments. In addition, a single measuring device can only collect fractions of the actual usage. "In future, we will have to combine data from different measurement sources in order to find out what TV users are doing, for example," said Dähler. He hopes to gain interesting insights into TV and radio consumption once RC and TC data can be linked with data from the new Net Metrix internet research (see below).
However, Dähler also made it clear that not all media consumption can be measured. Decisions about what to measure and what not to measure are indispensable. In Germany, for example, it was agreed not to measure out-of-home TV usage for the time being. "We will also have to make such decisions," said Dähler, but immediately added: "Fortunately, these decisions will soon be made by a foundation." In fact, the research foundation that is yet to be established will enable a more democratic consensus to be reached than before. However, the history of the new internet research Net Metrix shows how difficult such a process can be.
Moving with the timesAccording to Manuel Dähler
Mediapulse is constantly adapting its surveys to current developments. For example, the basic research Establishment Survey now also asks about radio consumption with headphones. Furthermore, the new generation of RC clocks can record radio consumption via headphones thanks to radio signals from an adapter plug on the headphone cable. And in 2007, data from the TC and RC panels can be combined with data from Internet research for the first time. This will be supplemented by a time-budget study, which is currently in the field and is intended to provide information on mobile and time-shifted radio and TV use, among other things. Mediapulse is also planning tests for cinema and ad screen measurement with a small series of multifunctional media watches.
Markus Knöpfli
