• by Geoff Alford , June 11, 2008

I have audited the TV ratings system in Australia for the last 15 years, both when Nielsen Media Research and then AGB had the contract.

The in-home ratings system, even using people meters, has its weaknesses, but is still the most credible measure of in-home viewing. With in-home panels, the main challenges are a) to maintain the sample balance of younger homes (which are more mobile); and b) to monitor and replace like-with-like in respect of more complex homes (more equipment and/or more people, which means they tend to fault more often leading to more QC calls). Consequently, in Australia, we have a forced turn-over period of four years to ensure that we don't end up with a television ratings panel of mainly simple homes (typically older couples with 1-2 TVs).

As in the USA, we have clients making demands to include measures of out-of-home viewing, viewing on PCs, IPTV, etc.

My position is as follows. "We have a credible in-home ratings system, which is transparent, justifiable and forms the official basis for trading of television advertising. Mr. Client, do not ask us to combine it with other viewing measures which are not credible, or expect us to give official approval to some fused system. If you want to combine credible audience measures with non-credible measures, you do it yourself, but don't ask us."

Therefore Nielsen should stand up to clients and say "No, you may be the client but you are wrong in making these demands on us. You pursue your holy grail at your own risk. Do not expect us to risk our reputation and the credibility of the in-home ratings system by caving in to your demands."