Ratings Lego? Video & TV measurement in Asia and beyond

Reporting from the asi APAC TV & Video Conference in Singapore, Richard Marks finds that many new video measurement systems are under construction around the world

This month researchers from around the APAC region and further afield converged on Singapore for the asi APAC Television & Video Conference. asi has been running an annual TV research event in Europe for over 25 years now, but the APAC version is only in its second year and reflects a strong hunger for audience measurement and research in the region.

As I discussed in a review of last year’s event, in the past the research industry in the region looked primarily to the west, but the dizzying pace of technology adoption in the region – particularly mobile – is making that exchange of information much more of a two-way discussion.

The APAC region is projected to account for two-thirds of the world’s affluent middle class by 2030, so understanding exactly how video is being used in the region, and how that changes over time will be vital for the global future of broadcasters and online players.

Measurement has never been a dry topic and, with the explosion of new services and platforms, it has never been more vital. Reliable measurement is essential to allow video services to be monetised – to attract advertising and help understand what content drives subscription to OTT services.

The event looked at TV measurement in the APAC region but also at a global level, so worked as a useful ‘health check’ on the state of TV and video measurement around the world.

A major theme was the increasing globalisation of content and formats.

Eurodata Worldwide presented global trends in content viewing, showing the increasing demand for drama as a genre and the rise of new formats – 900 new TV shows were launched in Asia in 2015.

In the so-called ‘Platinum Age’ of television there is a global demand for new content and formats. At a global level the top exporters of TV in 2016 were US and UK, but French (3rd) and Turkish (5th) programming and formats are also on the rise.

Parrot Analytics went beyond TV viewing in a paper presented with the BBC to look at how the global demand for programming can be measured by looking at the ‘ocean’ of social media and online activity around content.

We heard that in January 2016 Sherlock was the most in-demand programme in China and social buzz identified an untapped market for Doctor Who in Korea. So the future may be about evaluating ‘share of mind’ as well as counting eyeballs.

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If the BBC is indeed forced to publish the pay of its top talent then Steven Moffat will certainly have repaid his salary.

Meanwhile, a fascinating paper looked at Australian TV data to demonstrate that classifying a segment of the population as ‘light viewers’ can be misleading – light viewers can be heavy on some days and when their online and non-linear viewing is added in many cease to be ‘light viewers’ at all.

So filling the ‘holes’ in measurement is essential, and was another key theme of the conference. The event underlined the rise of hybrid measurement, but also reflected an understanding that ‘one size does not fit all’.

There are a number of hybrid TV and video measurement systems in development around the world. Last year’s event gave the impression of measurement being like a new Asian city – lots of tower blocks going up, but still very much under construction.

Everyone seems to be playing ratings ‘lego’: Nearly all the systems under development around the world that we heard about at the conference are effectively ‘hybrid’ systems – integrating TV panels, online panels and census (or server) data to build TV measurement across platforms and screens.

In that context BARB is using a broad approach that is being introduced in a number of countries, which should be reassuring to us in the UK. However the methodologies being used do vary and the pace of progress in implementation varies even more.

Nielsen’s system in the US looks the closest to completion, with broadcasters currently trialling data from a hybrid panel that combines TV meters online panels and demographic data from Facebook.

Meanwhile the systems in Netherlands and Sweden are well advanced and may actually prove more of a template for measurement in the APAC region – and around the world – than the US and UK systems.

Although people still lament that the BARB panel is ‘only’ 5,000 homes, in global terms this does place it as something of an outlier. Most countries typically have TV panels of 800-2,000 homes.

As a result these are not proving large enough to provide an estimate of online viewing and that data will need to be sourced from separate internet panels, which is the model that the Dutch and Swedish systems are following. Also both are at a more advanced stage of development than the UK.

BARC in India is in the process of awarding contracts for digital video measurement in an ambitious system that will encompass all forms of online video and advertising, not just broadcast-related, to go live next year. Meanwhile new television measurement systems are under construction in Thailand and Singapore.

Nonetheless, as of writing, not one country in the region or indeed anywhere in the world can claim to be conducting currency measurement of all broadcast and online video content and advertising across all platforms and devices. We are tantalisingly close though.

It is also significant that these services describe themselves as ‘video’ rather than just ‘TV’ measurement systems. For these hybrid systems to evolve, collaboration is needed.

In particular television companies are going to have to be less defensive and resistant to the involvement of the major digital players – access to their datasets will be increasingly important for the hybrid systems to work. Will BARB ever be able to adequately measure all video content in the UK without the active involvement of Facebook and Google?

Looking specifically at online video, we saw data from Korea that claimed that ad recall and impact was higher for VOD than linear advertising, whilst Facebook examined what makes ‘thumb-stopping’ online video and in particular the importance of the first few seconds of a video to capture interest and brand awareness.

Google outlined its strategy for brand measurement, which seems to indicate a higher willingness to collaborate with industry measurement services, whilst building its own data systems to sit alongside.

There was some debate in the various panel sessions about what the optimum organisational models for measuring video actually were. There seems to be a general consensus that the JIC (Joint Industry Committee) model is the best means for building an open system and engaging with stakeholders.

However, can decision-making by ‘committee’ act as a handbrake on rapid change and innovation? Again, are broadcasters doing enough to reach out to new media companies like Facebook, YouTube and Netflix?

The asi APAC conference seemed to show that the barriers between the worlds of broadcast and video are coming down. For younger consumers the genealogy of a media brand is largely irrelevant: it’s what they do now that matters and APAC is a particularly young region in terms of its age profile.

In some regards a trip to Asia is a trip into the future of media consumption, a future in which mobile plays an increasing role, with an even playing field for all forms of video.

Meanwhile asi returns to Europe in November for the three day Radio,Television & Video Conference in Budapest.

Richard Marks is director of Research the Media and research director of asi.