TV ratings systems evolving to remain industry ‘currency,’ experts say

Part of the process that helps determine the fates and ad rates for television shows in North America has remained essentially unchanged for decades. Thousands of television viewers across Canada and the United States pick up their pencils or pens and sit down with a paper booklet. They fill in the blanks with the names of the shows they watched recently, and then pop the booklet in the mail. In Canada, BBM Analytics organizes and analyzes the answers, which are combined with electronic monitoring results to make up TV ratings, while Nielsen Co. is responsible for that process in the U.S. Broadcasters use those ratings to figure out which shows are popular, and advertisers use them to determine where to advertise, and how much to spend to do so. BBM and Nielsen are now working on evolving their strategies in a ratings system that, in many ways, seems anachronistic. After all, we're in an age when online, over-the-top TV services are starting to disrupt the industry and ratings are influenced by "second screen" social media discussions. “I think they are trying hard to stay relevant,” said independent broadcasting consultant Kelly Lynne Ashton. “They’re each doing their own work and expanding the coverage. They’re not covering it all yet, so until the day they can say we’re catching all the eyeballs, you’ve got to a grain of salt with it.” Since 2009, BBM has used electronic monitors, called portable people meters, to help determine what viewers are watching across the country, and in Canada’s top five markets: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary. Those devices detect audio codes embedded in broadcasters’ signals and transmit to BBM a log of the programs participant viewers watch, Lisa Eaton, BBM’s senior vice-president of member engagement, said in a telephone interview. They measure live broadcasts, programs recorded on personal video recorders (PVR), mobile viewing, and live streams on broadcasters’ websites, she said, so long as the content is still encoded with the same audio signal and still includes the original broadcast commercials. Outside the top five markets, the company measures ratings twice a year using paper booklet diaries in which participants record the programs they watched that week. Eaton said the decision to use the paper diaries, which have been around since 1944, “comes down to cost.” In the U.S., Nielsen covers the majority of its markets through paper diaries, she said, adding that BBM is testing online versions of those logs. Both companies are also adapting to the growing use of online services. Nielsen launched in April a pilot project designed to measure ratings for TV content viewed online. In Canada, Eaton said, BBM is also working on a system that will allow it to expand its ability to measure online viewing. BBM currently tracks broadcast content through live streams and content recorded on PVRs, as long as it has the same commercials as the original broadcast. It's developing a new system that would allow it to measure online and on-demand content that doesn’t include the original broadcast commercials. The company will test the new system in the fall in a trial that will look at on-demand viewing, and hopes to release its findings in a report next spring. “The system, the way it’s being built, will allow us to expand into other areas of non-linear measurement as well,” Eaton said. “It’s a very dynamic, evolving space … Nobody can predict what new technologies are going to be coming out, so I think we just have to be as nimble as possible.” The way people talk about TV is also changing. Discussions that used to happen around the water cooler the morning after a hit show are increasingly taking place on social media, in real time, while the program is airing. In response, Nielsen will be rolling out this fall a new service that will give broadcasters and advertisers real-time analytics to help them better understand the social activity of TV audiences. In Canada, Montreal-based social media measurement group Seevibes launched a service last year that ranks Canadian TV shows based on how much attention they receive on social media networks. Ashton noted that social media attention can also affect ratings directly. She pointed to Sharknado, a made-for-TV movie about sharks attacking Los Angeles, which caused a Twitter uproar when it aired on NBCUniversal’s SyFy channel last month, boosting ratings for subsequent rebroadcasts. “Not a lot of people tuned into the first broadcast, but there was so much on Twitter about it, that a lot of people tuned into the second and the third broadcast that week,” Ashton said. Todd Juenger, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s vice-president and senior analyst of U.S. media, said traditional TV ratings are still relevant in an increasingly online world. While online viewing is growing, he noted, it still makes up a small percentage of an average household’s total video consumption. He said it is “extraordinarily important” for ratings systems to evolve to capture “emerging” viewer habits. “But the vast majority of viewing consumption and advertising dollars is still wrapped up in the old-fashioned notion of what television looks like,” he said. “No matter how fast you think the new stuff grows, it’s going to be a while before it makes a dent in traditionally defined television viewing.” He said TV ratings companies will have to measure both over-the-air and online viewing going forward. “Whoever is chosen to be the primary source of measurement for video, broadly defined, needs to measure it all,” Juenger said. “It’s not very helpful to the advertiser to have a really good measure of just the Internet video but not be able to combine that with traditional video.” Ashton said BBM and Nielsen have some “very difficult hurdles” to overcome as they attempt to better measure different types of viewing. One challenge, she noted, involves teaming up with wireless providers to track mobile viewing. Another is redefining what constitutes a program’s “first airing,” which tells broadcasters and advertisers how many people watch a particular program or episode when it’s first released, she said. First airing figures, she added, should be changed, for example, to incorporate repeat broadcasts later in the week, and should also consider how people watch new content online by spreading out different episodes of a series over a few weeks or binge-watching them in a weekend. “It’s not just the first airing of Sharknado … whole first run, these are the numbers that matter,” she said. “ model I don’t think is as viable anymore. We have to look at both—make sure we capture every single eyeball and then take a better look at how we define that first broadcast.” Theresa Treutler, president and CEO of the Television Bureau of Canada (TVB), said traditional TV ratings are still the “currency” of the industry, partly because of the rapidly changing TV landscape. She said it’s difficult for ratings to change fast enough to keep pace with the changing TV landscape. Researchers, she added, don’t have a “crystal ball” to predict when new viewing methods will reach a “point of critical mass” and merit their own research. “It’s very easy to say that BBM is lagging behind the measurement of consumer habits, and they probably are, but on the other hand the construct of this new research methodology—it’s very important that it be done right,” she said. “We’re close.” —With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

TV ratings systems evolving to remain industry ‘currency,’ experts say

Broadcast | August 13, 2013

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TV ratings systems evolving to remain industry ‘currency,’ experts say

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