Here be dragons

Harnessing the spirit of Victorian adventure, Route’s James Whitmore recently set off to Romania for the annual conference of the European Media Research Organisation. So what did he discover from our European neighbours? Ground is, thankfully, still being broken but audience measurement continues to face some serious challenges…

The coverage of the anniversary of the conquest of Everest tends to miss the most interesting bit – the doomed attempts of the British expeditions in the early nineteen-twenties.

George Mallory and chums, tortured with guilt having survived the Great War, pluckily set out across Tibet, at the time mostly unmapped, with naught but over a thousand items of luggage between the twelve of them. Essentials included tins of foie gras and cases of fine wine and champagne.

At least they set off in blissful ignorance. Had you been exploring west Africa in the nineteenth century one would have had to prepare to traverse the Mountains of Kong, a massive range that ran from west to east, roughly along the top of what is now Nigeria.

This great natural barrier was the result of the imagination of a cartographic desk jockey who misinterpreted the reports of early adventurers who had spotted a couple of peaks in the vicinity. The mountains were shown on maps for the best part of a century before someone proved that they did not exist.

In the modern day, such exploration is no longer possible, although I guess that working in advertising communications does come close at times. Innovation abounds and sacred cows are regularly, if not slaughtered, then at least put quietly out to grass.

It was with the spirit of Victorian adventure that I set off to Romania for the annual conference of the European Media Research Organisation (EMRO), this time held in Bucharest. It is a get-together for all the media audience research bodies, where they compare experiences and share new learning.

The news for the latter-day Mallory is to prepare for a diet of Spam and Blue Nun. And perhaps be ready to set off with a single case of luggage containing little to test the strength of one’s trusty hired Himalayan yak. Yak-lite as they say in the outdoor world.

Most of the presentations were for press and online with the odd smattering of radio and TV. The depressing cycle of decreased revenue leading to lower investment in research was pretty well universal.

Not unnaturally, some of the money saving research techniques pick up smaller audiences – which will inevitably lead to yet less revenue, less research and so on. Plummeting down a steep scree slope with little hope of arrest.

In many cases, there is a falling appreciation of quality research and even less desire to pay for it. In the most troubling examples, the wish for a cheap solution has led to a breakdown of the JIC structure, with a single currency being replaced by competing approximations.

Nevertheless, the exploratory zeal of researchers remains. The gloom is not universal. The Swedes presented a new study on the quality of reading. Both the Belgians and the Dutch are tackling online readership in interesting ways. The Norwegians have created a novel unit of print measurement – gross exposure points – that they hope will form a new currency. Slovenia has a new version of its NRS and Finland is working on one for 2015.

The Czechs can now report basic aggregated TV viewing figures within eight minutes of broadcast (their meters have a GPRS function). Just imagine, if a new show is tanking, the station can pull the plug and show a re-run instead.

The UAE is attempting to place TV people-meters in the face of many cultural obstacles. Just how do you set up a set-top box when the race, religion or gender of the installation engineer can each result in the refusal of admission to the home to place the meter?

And even if they do cross the threshold, they might still find that many rooms in the house are off-limits to all but family members. Tough luck if the telly is in the bedroom. The ambition to capture 40% of viewing puts the achievement of BARB in context.

Ground is still being broken, albeit at a slower pace and in fewer places.

The challenge for audience research bodies is to promote the advantage of their currencies, to remind the industry of the importance of their trusted brands and to remain flexible in the face of “big data” and the diminution of budgets.

If they fail, as Mallory almost certainly did, it will be many years before such heights are scaled again.

It is not an easy challenge but it must be conquered, not least because it’s there.