Out-of-home TV viewing happening at work, PPM study reveals

The second most common place for out-of-home TV viewing is during daytime hours at work, according to data obtained from a portable people meter (PPM) trial in Houston TX. "We now have evidence that out-of-home television viewing is during the day – Monday to Friday, right smack in the middle of the day, not on weekends or in the evenings," said Arbitron senior VP Bob Patchen during a session at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) conference in Winnipeg on November 6. "Once you account for viewing at friends’ homes, the next most common viewing occasion is at work," he noted. "Over the years, we have adopted this myth that out-of-home TV viewing is in bars and restaurants, but really it is much more concentrated at work." He pointed out that 60% of the workforce doesn’t work in offices and that televisions are everywhere. "There are televisions in breakrooms, at hospitals, pizza parlours, liquor stores, etcetera," he said. He also cited the examples of airline WestJet having televisions on seatbacks that broadcast live programming, and subscription satellite radio providers Sirius and XM aiming to bring video as well as audio to cars. In Canada, the PPM has been in use in Montreal since September 2003 (CCR, July 30/04). But the latest version of the PPM – the type used in the Houston trial that records whether a viewer is in-home or out-of-home – was just recently installed in the homes of all the panel members in Montreal, so no data is available for the Canadian market. BBM Canada president and CEO Jim MacLeod said that about 150 Montreal homes will soon begin recording in-home and out-of-home viewing. But he told Canadian Commun-ications Reports that similar results will likely be found in Canada. "We have not studied at-work viewing as much as Arbitron has because they have the out-of-home capability. But we think will be the same in Canada," he said. "People say, ‘I don’t watch TV at work,’ but there is a lot of TV at work. I didn’t pay any attention to this until I got exposed to it and started watching what I personally do. I fly during the day and spend 15 minutes in the airport watching television before I get on the plane, and the television is on all the time at a lot of peoples’ work." The PPM is a wireless device that picks up encoded signals embedded in TV and radio programming to record what the person carrying the device is tuning in to. At night, the device is docked in a base that downloads the day’s viewing statistics to head office for compilation. In the Montreal market, a PPM must be in motion for a minimum of fours hours a day for the TV viewing and radio listening data to count. While two major broadcasters opted out of the Houston study and didn’t have their broadcast signals encoded, all of the radio and TV broadcasters in Montreal are cooperating in the gathering of data with the PPM. MacLeod said the PPM was introduced to Montreal – which converted to electronic measurement later than most Canadian cities – because it was available at the time of conversion, and it was seen as a more viable alternative to the wired meter at the set-top boxes, the method used in other Canadian cities. With the PPM, participants don’t have to push any buttons, as they do with the wired meter. He noted that the PPM is the most likely option for other Canadian cities when they are upgraded from wired meters, but that it probably won’t be rolled out elsewhere in Canada until 2008. The Houston PPM study, which involved two panels of 1,050 people, also found that 93% of viewing, even in households with personal video recorders (PVRs), was of the original TV broadcast. About 9% of Houston households have PVRs, but only 7% watched programming on a time-shifted basis. About 80% of that 7% watched the time-shifted programming within a day or two of the original broadcast, said Patchen. The TV viewer and radio listener studies using the PPM in Montreal that looked at things other than time-shifted and out-of-home viewing mirrored much of the results from the Houston study. The overall rankings in terms of audience for each TV and radio station didn’t change between PPM research and studies using low-tech written diaries. The PPM did find several changes from results obtained in diary studies, including increased radio listening in the evenings and on weekends. Radio listening jumped to 80% on Saturdays and 75% on Sundays in Montreal with the PPM compared to 53.8% and 45.6% measured in past diary studies, according to MacLeod. The morning show ratings, however, fell to 14.2 with the PPM from the 19.7 rating obtained from diaries. The PPM also found that people listen to twice as many radio stations, but the time spent tuned to each station is lower than that reported in diary studies. "With the PPM, radio looks very much like television ," said MacLeod. He attributed the differences in research to the methodologies, not the composition of the samples. He noted, for example, that the diary provides for the recording of listening only in 15-minute intervals, while the PPM records the exact length of time a TV or radio station is tuned to. As well, he said that people may tend to record in their diaries routine listening or viewing that may not happen one day, if for instance, they have a doctor’s appointment. The Houston study also cross-referenced radio listening and TV viewing statistics with retail store visits, something MacLeod said would also eventually be examined in Montreal. The PPM in Houston recorded participants’ visits to particular stores as the Arbitron device picked up signals emitted at the shops. Cross-tabulation of the data enabled researchers to see where listeners to particular radio stations tended to shop, as well as what types of TV programming they preferred. For example, in Houston, it was found that many listeners to the local country FM station watched World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Smackdown the night before on television. "This kind of data will help radio stations know which types of programs they should be talking about the next morning. It could also help determine which radio stations are best to promote specific kinds of TV shows or vice-versa," said Patchen. As a result of the viewing trends revealed by the PPM, MacLeod said, "Radio will be sold differently because it turns radio into a reach medium." The PPM measurements will enable radio stations to get full value for special events because audience figures will be more instant and exact for a show, he added. Patchen also pointed out that cross-tabulation of data will enable radio stations to better reach frequent shoppers of specific retail stores. The PPM data could also be used to indicate whether or not a particular promotion has been successful by tracking the number of listeners that go to specific stores following the broadcast of particular ads.

Out-of-home TV viewing happening at work, PPM study reveals

News | 11/18/2005 5:00 am EST

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