Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. This broader meaning is also called audience research.
Measurements are broken down by media market, which for the most part corresponds to metropolitan areas, both large and small.
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The diary was one of the first methods of recording information. However, this is prone to mistakes and forgetfulness, as well as subjectivity. Data is also collected down to the level of listener opinion of individual songs, cross referenced against their age, race, and economic status in listening sessions sponsored by oldies and mix formatted stations. IBOPE was the first realtime service for audience measurement of the world, it started in São Paulo in 1988. In 1990 IBOPE started working in association with companies from México, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina to start similar services in those countries.
More recently, technology has been used to track listening and viewing habits. Arbitron's Portable People Meter uses a microphone to pick up and record subaudible tones embedded in broadcasts by an encoder at each station or network. It has even been used to track in-store radio.
There are certain software applications being developed to monitor cable TV operators with full passive and permissive viewer measurement functionality to monitor television channel ratings. The system tracks every time the channel is changed and records it accordingly. It allows what was being viewed at the time and which channel the viewer changed to. This information allows operators, broadcasters and advertising media to monitor audience TV usage habits. Such monitoring can be automatically performed in real-time without the necessity of viewers cooperation.[1]
Nielsen//NetRatings measures Internet and digital media audiences through a telephone and Internet survey. Nielsen BuzzMetrics measures consumer-generated media. Other companies collecting information on internet usage include comScore, Wakoopa and Hitwise, who measure hits on internet pages. Companies like Visible Measures focus on measuring specific types of media; in the case of Visible Measures, they measure online video consumption and distribution across all video advertising and content.
TruMedia, Quividi, stickyPiXEL and CognoVision provide real-time audience data including size, attention span and demographics by using video analytics technology to automatically detect, track and classify viewers watching digital displays. Networked Insights measures online audiences, and released a report ranking television shows, based on people's interactions within social media. The study showed that half of the shows on Networked Insights' top 10 list did not appear on the Nielsen Media Research (NMR) list.
The demographic of a particular show's audience is also measured. This is often notated in an abbreviated form,[2] e.g.:
Ratings point is a measure of viewership of a particular television programme.
One single television ratings point (Rtg or TVR) represents 1% of viewers in the surveyed area in a given minute. As of 2004, there are an estimated 109.6 million television households in the United States. Thus, a single national household ratings point represents 1%, or 1,096,000 households for the 2004-05 season. When used for the broadcast of a program, the average rating across the duration of the show is typically given. Ratings points are often used for specific demographics rather than just households. For example a ratings point among the key 18-49 year olds demographic is equivalent to 1% of all 18-49 year olds in the country.
A Rtg / TVR is different from a share point in that it is the percentage of all possible viewers, while a share point is 1% of all viewers watching television at the time. Hence the share of a broadcast is often significantly higher than the rating, especially at times when overall TV viewing is low. A low TRP can have an adversse effect on a TV program eventually leading to its closure.[3]
Gross Rating Points (GRPs) or Target Rating Points (TRPs) are chiefly used to measure the performance of TV-based advertising campaigns, and are the sum of the TVRs of each commercial spot within the campaign. An ad campaign might require a certain number of GRPs among a particular demographic across the duration of the campaign. The GRP of a campaign is equal to the percentage of people who saw, multiplied by the average number of spots that these viewers saw. Targeted Rating Points are a refinement of GRPs to express the reach time frequency of only the most likely prospects. For example, if a campaign buys 150 GRPs for a television spot, but only half of that audience is actually in the market for the campaign's product, then the TRP would be stated as 75 to calculate the net effective buy [1].
GRP stands for Gross Rating Point. A standard measure in advertising, it measures adverising impact. It is a percent of the target market reached multiplied by the exposure frequency. Thus, a program which advertises to 30% of the target market and gives them 4 exposures, will have 120 GRP.
GRPs as a measure has some limitations. People like to think of it as a measure of impact, but that is really overstated. Impact should measure sales; this measures exposures, which is in fact assumed not actual exposures.
Universe: Universe is the total or actual number of people in a defined target audience.
Reach: Reach is the number of individuals from the universe who are exposed to the medium or vehicle.
Reach is normally expressed in terms of % (percentages)
If universe is: 1000000 Individuals (it’s approx. data, it’s usually defined through sampling through people-meter)
For a single episode of a program (30 minutes or 1 hour) If out of above 1000000 of individuals 600000 saw at least 1 minute of programme then:
Reach = (600000/1000000) x 100
Reach = 60%
Variations of the REACH CONCEPT
Gross Reach is the summation of all audiences who have been exposed to the vehicle.
Cumulative Reach: The audiences accumulate over the time
• Net Reach: Net Reach is the summation of all audiences who have been exposed to the vehicle and excludes the duplication of the viewership.
| Weeks | Gross Reach | Total Reach | Duplication | Total Duplication | Net Reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 1000 | 1000 | -- | -- | 1000 |
| Week 2 | 2000 | 3000 | (300) | (300) | 2700 |
| Week 3 | 1500 | 4500 | (900) | (1200) | 3300 |
| Week 4 | 1200 | 5700 | (1000 | (2200) | 3500 |
TVR = Reach x Time spent
TVR = (minutes viewed/minutes available) + (mins viewed / minutes available)/N X100
N= Number of individuals
The sum of all ratings achieved in a campaign GRP levels are generally measured and reported on a 4 week basis It is a measure of the media plan’s trust
Measurement used in planning a television media buy based on the cost of a commercial time slot and the rating of the program where the time slot is positioned. If, for example, the cost of a commercial time slot during prime time was $1000 and the program rating for that time was 10 (which means that 10% of the total potential audience was tuned to that program), then the cost per GRP would be $1000 divided by 10%, or $100. The CPGRP measurement is a way of measuring the efficiency of media cost, as compared to measuring the cost per thousand (CPT) and is generally used when making comparisons of the various broadcast vehicles. When the actual buy is made, the advertiser will still want to know the cost of reaching people on a cost-per-thousand basis.
| Programme Name | Time | Secondages | Effective Rate | Total Amt | TVR | GRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 10:00am - 11:00am | 150 | 6000 | 90000 | 5.4 | 81 |
| B | 21:00 - 22:00 | 200 | 30000 | 600000 | 9.8 | 196 |
| Total | - | 350 | - | 690000 | - | 277 |
CPRP = 2491 (i.e.,Total Amt/Total GRPs)
Diary-based radio ratings in the USA may inflate listenership, because they are only measured in 15-minute increments. Listening at any time during a quarter-hour counts as listening for the entire duration, even if the actual time was just for a song or two.
The process of surveying listeners for their preferences has also been criticised for its lack of flexibility. Listeners complain that modern radio lacks variety and depth but the measurement methods only facilitate further refinement of already minutely programmed formats rather than the overhaul that many listeners are asking for. Radio in the USA, is where listeners hear their old favorites rather than are exposed to new music. Data obtained by some audience measurement methods is detailed to individual songs and how they are reacted to by each age, racial, and economic group the station is seeking to attract. This statistical approach leads to highly recognizable songs (such as those from the Beatles) which score well with a cross-section of listeners.[4][5]
The world’s largest audience measurement conference, AM 6.0, is presented annually by the Advertising Research Foundation. Each year, hundreds of attendees from around the world gather to hear a collection of experts speak on Social Media, Mobile and Cross-Platform issues.