Main Page Filed under: General
We’ve had quite a dialogue with Listener Kerrie about how the TV ratings system in Australia works. We had some initial coverage on the show a few weeks back but it seems that that discussion may have raised more questions than it answered. I think the problem is that the ratings body - OzTAM - don’t want to necessarily be held accountable and so make it difficult to get anything firm.
Anyways, I thought I’d post the thread that we’ve had going to this point and also include a couple of items from the Crikey web site that provide a couple more clues:
Kerrie writes:
Hi Boxcutters,
I want to get my head around the whole TV ratings thing, and I’d like your help. We all know that the networks rely on the ratings figures to make decisions about whether programs live or die, or are retired to ridiculous time slots - even more so these days than in the past. It seems clear from talking to people I know and listening to your podcast that we’re all aghast at the crap people love to watch and wonder why the best shows on TV are living a tentative existence in the 10.30pm time slots. OK, so a lot of people love crap - we all know that. A lot of them also keep voting for John Howard. Go figure.
But I want to know how the ratings are compiled. How do they get the figures? Is it really an accurate reflection of what everyone in the country is watching? Cinema box office figures are straightforward: you buy a ticket, your vote is counted. But I’ve never known anyone who has participated in TV ratings. I see it as being a bit like voting Liberal: apparently a lot of people do it, but I don’t know anyone who does (or if they do, they’re not admitting it). My understanding is that only households who are high-volume TV watchers participate in ratings. And because these viewers tend to be less educated than low-volume users, who are more likely to pick and choose when they do watch, and more likely to switch to the ABC and SBS, the ratings are skewed in favour of … well, crap. Which means that more people actually watch the ABC and SBS than appears in ratings figures. I don’t know how to put that in a way that doesn’t sound snobby: my defence is that I read it in a Green Guide article once. If this is the case, what
would the face of TV ratings look like if every television was involved?But, first of all, how DO they get those pesky figures?
We spoke about what we understand about the OzTAM ratings system and actually came up with more questions than we answered - have a listen in Episode 8.
Kerrie responded:
Thanks for investigating the whole ratings thing – well, as far as the brick walls will let you, anyway. I’m really curious about things like sample sizes and demographics, and wonder why it’s all so cloaked in mystery. It must be part of a worldwide plot to dumb us all down by telling us that the only shows we like are stupid ones so we’ll accept whatever crap they’ll throw at us. Whoever’s writing George W Bush’s speeches is definitely part of the conspiracy
Brett Boxcutter postulated:
Perhaps it’s a little like the unemployment figures that the govt releases… if you work for an hour a week then you’re not counted as unemployed…? If you’ve been cut off by Centrelink for missing a meeting, you’re out of the system and aren’t counted as unemployed…? Let’s see the figures of number of people properly employed as a ratio of the number of working age population. I reckon it’s just a way that they avoid having to be held accountable. If you only have figures projected to the entire population and don’t release the actual details of the survey, anyone questioning the methodology can only do so on speculation.
It may also be a little like business getting independent research done into whatever… the third party company knows what the result that the client wants to see and they work towards that. The networks love reality TV - or documentary, depending on which take we’re taking this week - because they don’t have to employ writers or pay actors and they can have some fairly average production values. Given that OzTAM know this, aren’t they going to skew the survey sample so that they are more likely to capture the type of audience that watches it? If they don’t, if they suddenly show that proper quality shows are the ones that the Australian audience wants to watch - the shows that require planning and investment - maybe the networks won’t want to play ball anymore. The radio ratings system costs each station somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 per annum to be included in the surveys - I’d imagine the TV ratings would cost more.
Which raises the question… what happened to AC Nielson and the paper diaries? Perhaps they were too accurate and not skewed enough in the favour of the commercial TV broadcasters and the networks went looking for a more favourable system (for them).
Just a bit of a hunch but it’s all logical…
To which Kerrie replied:
Food for thought … I imagined when I asked about ratings in the first place that the networks would prefer to see big figures for cheap-to-produce crap and wondered how much of the ratings were simply a wish-fulfilment being fulfilled. Interesting.
It’s also interesting looking at the radio ratings – are they still done the old paper-diary way? – the ABC does a helluva lot better in radio ratings than it does in TV. If there’s an audience for non-commercial radio I imagine there would be a similar one for non-commercial tv? Maybe not. Perhaps radio’s a whole different kettle of fish and I’m just looking for a conspiracy theory to give me a purpose in life.
Meanwhile, in a broader Australian forum over at Crikey, there has been more discussion on aspects of the OzTAM ratings system:
Is there an inbuilt bias in the current TV ratings systems?
The Crikey Daily
A Crikey reader has written the following letter, which calls into question the way the current ratings panels are being assembled:
I have been reading with interest your continuing articles on this year’s ratings battle. I think, however, I have found an unaccounted for statistical variable that may be influencing the ratings figures.
Last night our household received a telephone call from Australian Television Ratings who wanted to know if we were prepared to participate in the TV ratings for them. Apparently if we participated we would get a small gift.
Having indicated that the household would be more than interested to use the extra remote control to monitor our viewing habits the company spokesperson inquired as to how many televisions we had – embarrassing to admit 3 working televisions for just the two of us. They also asked if one of the televisions was a plasma TV, to which we said yes, being proud owners of one of the thin big screens.
“Sorry,” we were told, “you can not participate in the survey for the next 3 months until we update our technology to be compatible with plasma TVs” – well there goes the small gift!
It did get us wondering if excluding plasma screen viewers such as ourselves might be the reason so many tacky reality shows are rating so well. I mean you would hardly bother with a big plasma screen to watch Desperate Housewives would you?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I reckon the gels of Desperate Housewives would look just fine in widescreen plasma or LCD, don’t you? So too Mark Ferguson, Ray Martin, Friday night footy, Test cricket, AFL, even Big Brother. But Terry Television was also contacted by ATR recently, checked out, and am now on standby to go onto the ATR panel, as I only have an old fashioned CRT - no plasma for Terry TV.
I was actually contacted by a market research company working for ATR. But the reader’s point is a very good one. With so many widescreen plasma and LCD TVs now sold (not to mention the very small but growing group using their PCs) there would seem to be a small but growing statistical glitch in the sample group for the ratings. This means that the panel is ’skewing’ to certain consumer groups and away from a broad-based sample.
ATR is working on this solution, according to industry sources that will enable it to measure the use of plasma, LCD and digital TVs.
That will be welcome, but it does indicate a certain slowness off the mark at ATR, and OzTAM, the company owned by the networks which buys the ratings. Plasma, LCD and digital TVs are not new products. The widescreen plasmas are now into their sixth or seventh generations, LCDs are about fourth or fifth generation.
Which prompted the CEO of OzTAM, Kate Inglis-Clark, to jump in:
Plasma TVs and OzTAM ratings
OzTAM responds to Terry Television
Kate Inglis-Clark, CEO of OzTAM writes:
Terry Television’s piece yesterday about inclusion of plasma TVs on the OzTAM panel warrants a response.
Firstly, it is not correct that viewers with plasma TVs cannot be included on the OzTAM panel. In fact there are already a number of homes with plasma TVs on the panel and their viewing is measured. We also measure TV viewing across other TV types such as LCD and of course CRT.
It is worth noting that Digital Broadcasting Australia reports the total sales of LCD screens in Australia to December 2004 as being around 85,000. With over 7 million television homes in Australia, the incidence of LCDs is at best around 1%.
OzTAM is also well advanced in measurement of digital terrestrial homes, which will be included in the panel later this year. OzTAM continually monitors the incidence of new types of TV equipment in Australian homes and uses this information to ensure that when there is sufficient penetration of these types of equipment within TV watching households, we are able to measure them.
The OzTAM panel is balanced to ensure that we maintain a representative picture of television viewing households. Terry Television’s survey participation was in the ongoing Establishment Survey which surveys 30,000 households each year to gather information on that representative picture and from which potential homes are identified for recruitment into the OzTAM panel. However it is unlikely that he will be on the waiting list for inclusion in the panel, as those working in television related industries are specifically excluded from participation.
Kate Inglis-Clark
CEO, OzTAM
There are a couple of things that these two posts illuminate… Firstly that OzTAM - or ATR - are moving the people meters around and they’re not just installed in the households of a static survey group - which is good and answers one of the questions raised in Episode 8.
Secondly, “…off the mark at ATR, and OzTAM, the company owned by the networks which buys the ratings…” is quite interesting. I had no idea that the company that audits the TV industry is owned by the TV industry. Surely that further compromises the survey methodology.
BB
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>