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sion screen and delivery methods. These projects,
which typically involve a hybrid methodology us-
ing two or more types or sources of data, are at
different stages of readiness: in some cases, the
first results are being reported to the market, oth-
ers are at the deployment and testing phase. Un-
like traditional television audience measurement,
which is very similar across countries and uses
well established methodologies, these new ap-
proaches to comprehensive viewing measurement
differ markedly between countries in terms of the
technologies and statistical modelling techniques
employed. Beyond the technical challenges as-
sociated with measuring increasingly fragmented
device usage, some of the most important unan-
swered questions lie in the commercial decisions
that will ultimately be taken around how to use
audience data for monetisation in the future: the
question of tomorrow’s currencies.
/ / Balancing pace of change with
the need to develop robust and
future-proof solutions
Change is nothing new in television, a medium that
has gone from just a few linear channels broad-
casting for only part of each day in black and white,
to a 24 hour, multi-channel, linear and on-demand
offer that covers almost every conceivable hu-
man interest, delivered in ever higher definition to
ever larger screens. TAM has naturally evolved at
the same time, both in terms of the methodolo-
/ / The view of television sales
houses
egta’s television sales house members share the
opinion that in today’s digital and increasingly
connected multi-screen and multi-device media
world, where there is more information, choice,
individual control and customisation, audience
measurement systems and data analytics must be
adapted to the new reality. Viewers today watch
television content on many screens other than
TV sets and usually do so via the Internet, using
a variety of connected devices, and their viewing
behaviour has evolved faster than the audience
measurement techniques that form the basis of
advertising transactions. The accurate and com-
prehensive measurement of television content re-
quires a joint effort of all actors in the advertising
industry: media owners and their sales houses, ad-
vertisers, media agencies and research providers.
The television sales houses represented by egta
base their arguments for evolved audiovisual au-
dience measurement on the following premise:
television is – and will remain – the leading mass
communication medium, while also proving effec-
tive for smaller target groups through niche and
thematic channels, whether delivered via over-
the-air broadcast, cable, satellite, Internet Protocol
Television (IPTV) or over-the-top services. It is the
medium that enjoys the most effective, quantita-
tive and robust measurement, and the use of elec-
tronic people meters is almost universal. Television
not only offers the most accurate data, it also al-
lows meaningful comparison between countries.
Effective evolution therefore requires the exten-
sion of traditional television audience measure-
ment (TAM) systems to all other devices, rather
than its replacement by an entirely new system.
Several countries, a number of which can be found
in Part 3 of this report, are already developing
new audiovisual measurement solutions that can
capture viewing beyond the traditional televi-
“In today’s digital and
increasingly connected
multi-screen and multi-
device media world, audience
measurement systems and
data analytics must be
adapted to the new reality.”