New Audience Measurement Tools May Affect Ratings
A dramatic change in the way television and radio audiences are measured could impact the ratings for many shows.
On August 31st, BBM, the company that tracks ratings for broadcasters, will switch to a new system called the Portable People Meter (PPM). It will replace the old diary method in most places. Traditionally ratings have been collected by a representative panel of people that recorded what they watched and listened to in a diary. The old system depended on people accurately and meticulously recording their activity.
Now that system will be replaced by a pager-sized device that ratings panelist will wear on their belts. The device is intended to mimic the human ear, meaning it will be able to hear what people are watching or listening to as long as it’s within hearing range. The PPM will pick up an inaudible audio watermark that identifies the broadcaster, and collect and report that data so that it can be compiled into TV and radio ratings.
The new system will also pick up signals in public spaces. “PPM’s can recognize signals from anywhere. In a car, at a restaurant or bar, at the shopping mall” Jennifer Lang, a senior manager with the research department said. This will likely increase audience numbers to certain types of programming that is frequently on in public places, like sports programs or news. It will also likely make the minute by minute numbers much more encompassing than they were under the diary method.
Another benefit is that the new system will also be able to capture internet ratings. So for instance if television or radio content is being consumed online, the PPM will still pick up the signal, as long as it has been preserved in the file. In order for the meter to pick up the signal online producers will have to ensure that they capture their content from a broadcast source, and that they don’t inadvertantly strip out the signal when they compress the files for online distribution. If it’s implemented properly the new system may have some ratings impact for shows with large online audiences like The Hour, and the Hockey Night in Canada streams and certain radio shows with popular podcasts.
Wether these changes will have a large or small impact on show ratings won’t be known until September, but for the first time in Canada, online audiences will be captured in the broadcast ratings and the results should be very interesting.
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How will the pager detect programming listeners consume with earbuds or headphones? If it can’t, our new iPhone streaming radio app, amongst other mobile friendly radio programming, will not count in the ratings! Ouch!
Craig, the meters have adapters to plug into iPods and similar devices.
Excellent. I think those adapters will be a boon for CBC’s numbers!
Also, when people are listening via streams, CBC knows exactly how many people are connected and listening at what time, from where. It’s not BBM data, but its not like radio gets commercial revenue.
And every metered taxi driver in Toronto is listening to ??
Some results will be skewed from the aspirational diaries.
Although it seems like a decent effort, I’ve never been one to trust data from small focus groups. I assume these meters are pretty expensive and probably won’t be given out to very many people
A focus group is a different beast entirely. I’d imagine the panel selection methodology would be similar to what’s in place already, so if you don’t trust this (for statistical reasons) you don’t trust what’s already there.
…Which is a whole other discussion, but kindof an irrelevant one for us mere mortals as the only purpose of these numbers is to price ads.
BB claims the panel is a selection of people that match the demographic based on the census.
I believe about 5-6thousand people (or households?) will receive the PPM but its mostly only in major markets. smaller regions still depend on the diary for radio…
I haven’t read the specifics in a little while so my numbers may be off.
for those who run tv through pvrs and other electronic capture devices, what happens to the “inaudible audio watermark”?
Jason, PVR’s shouldn’t strip out the signal, as for other devices it depends on whether they are compressing the signal or not.