MRG Evening Meeting – Measuring Digital
Yesterday evening’s Media Research Group (MRG) Evening Meeting tackled the issues of measuring audience data in the digital age. The first big step for BARB is to set up a system to measure digital television audiences. Beyond this, however, there are issues of TV and PC convergence, pay-per-view (PPV) and on-demand programming, as well as access to both radio and television through the world wide web. Each of these developments in technology is going to alter the way people consume broadcast media and, accordingly, will affect the way these audiences are measured.
Opening the meeting, Paul Milsom of research bureau BMRB looked at the company’s research into who is buying into digital TV and why. The BMRB surveys have shown that the key drivers of digital uptake so far have been picture quality (67%), sound quality (59%) and an increased choice of channels (57%). The study also showed that digital TV homes are more likely than the average UK home to have access to the internet. However, unlike early internet adopters, who were predominantly young, male and upmarket, the first digital TV subscribers are split 50:50 male to female.
Interactive services, such as those currently provided on Sky Digital by Open, were seen to be attractive by most respondents only if they are offered for free. The survey also showed that of those people planning to buy into DTV in the next 12 months, 51% would choose Sky Digital, 16% ONdigital and 20% cable digital. This is before cable digital has really got off the ground, with two of the cable companies – Cable & Wireless Communications and Telewest – still offering services only in certain regions and NTL yet to have launched digital cable TV.
John Clements and Dave Chilvers from Continental Research presented a scenario for 2003 where 12 million homes have digital television services and most will have access to the internet. In this scenario people will use their electronic programme guides (EPGs) to select which programmes they want to watch, and quite possibly when they want to watch them. The EPGs will allow viewers to search for programmes by title and genre, regardless of what channel they appear on, and ‘on-demand’ libraries of programmes will allow people to ‘download’ the programmes to watch them whenever it is convenient.
This situation raises a number of issues for advertising planners who may not be able to schedule ads in the traditional way – ie. around a predetermined programme schedule. Also, as people can pick and choose when they want to watch programmes and films, ad avoidance is likely to become more prevalent. The issue of whether clearly-defined channels will continue to exist in an environment where viewers can effectively build their own schedules through the EPG was also raised.
TV viewing and radio listening via the internet are also on the increase and when the next BARB and RAJAR contracts are awarded this is perhaps an area that should be built in to the survey methodologies, suggested Clements.