As television viewership increased, there was a need for research of which channels are being viewed the most – in other words known as “Audience measurement”. Thus Nielsen – a leading market research company came out with the Audimeter. The Audimeter is the first meter to be established which could measure network viewership.
The daily and weekly estimates of TV viewing was observed through a two pronged strategy. First, people in a particular locality were given the Audimeter. The audimeter could record the channels being viewed currently. The second set of people kept diaries of the demographic profile of people who had audimeter. For example, the audimeter could measure that cartoon network is being viewed. But it cant measure that a child is watching cartoon network. By tallying both, you could get the channels being viewed as well as the demography of people viewing the channels.
There were several problems associated with the audimeter. Firstly, the results took ages to arrive. And secondly, because of the human element involved, several statistics were skewed. The people keeping diaries went down and as a result there were very few people actually keeping tabs on demography. Thus in the end the audimeter was slowly being considered as a failure. Competition began rising and there was another audience measurement company which against nielson in starting audience measurement.
Thus Nielsen as a response started the people meter. The people meter was not widespread. It was established in only 6000 households. But unlike the audimeter, the people meter could not only measure the channels being viewed but also the demography of the person viewing it. This is done by having a button which the viewing person can press thereby establishing his demography. Thus audience measurement became possible.
There are a lot of supporters for the people meter just like there are cynics. The supporters agree that statistically, the people meter improves audience measurement. But the cynics also rightly say that the number of households being observed are too less. Furtheremore, it is possible to alter the data received from People meter. A television channel which wants increase its rating will introduce very attractive programs for a week or two. Once it reaches the top, it can showcase forever that it has the “Highest TRP’s”. Thus there are complications with the people meter as well.
Nowadays there are also portable people meters for both television as well as radio. The efforts are on to increase measuring television and radio viewership and listeners.
Get Daily Marketing Updates in your Inbox
About Hitesh Bhasin
