Auditing TV audience measurement- the case of Greece

1. The trend towards quantification-Why quantification

2. New developments in mass media consumption

3. Τhe overall structure of TV audience measurement

4. The evolution of TV audience research across countries

5. The Greek peculiarity

6. What happens in other countries in terms of auditing

7. What we have learned from the above

8. Conclusions

The emerging climate of deregulation in the mass media sphere went along with the rise, and after a while, the expansion, and finally the domination– of the consumer market and the consumer society in most European countries. This -at times with a slow motion and at other times quite rapidly - led to a trend, which became manifest and sovereign in them. This certain trend was the convergence of the mass media with advertising, and, shortly afterwards, the convergence of advertising with consumption. The above movement tended to coincide with the observed universal changes at the financial, political, cultural and productive levels.

These consecutive convergences possess as their common foundation the continuous quest for profit-making, i.e. the increase in the profitability of the companies controlling, or influencing, to a lesser or greater degree, the mass media, advertising, as well as trends in consumption. Money is the nexus of these three basic components of this tripolar bond :

Mass media —advertising—consumption

Though the sphere of money pre-supposes the extended acceptance and practice of quantification, a necessary pre-requisite for the processes of corresponding each one of these components with money. The latter operates as a common measure of exchanges at the bipolar level : mass media—advertising, advertising—consumption, consumption—mass media.

The wider acceptance of quantification becomes attainable through the utilization of mathematics, or, a watered-down version of them, that could be named as mathematics applied to the realities (and difficulties) of everyday life. These processes of legitimization seem to form the touchstone of what comprises contemporary rationalism, managing through its own legitimization via mathematics, a model of (the so-called ) general validity, and maintaining that these specific models lead to conclusions applicable to any circumstances, irrespective of (any ) specific occasion.

Quantification was the necessary prerequisite for the existence of commercialization, that has mainly to do with the mass media and advertising (i.e commodity communication, or commodity discourse, and indirectly with consumption and their relationship to the money nexus. The prime mover leading to the need for quantification, and subsequently to commercialization, is the ever-expanding presence of commodities in societies, the substructure in the formation of the consumer society.

Except for the so-called “traditional” media (comprising print media, radio and TV), the new entrant, Internet , gradually and steadily occupies a significant position in the mass media constellation. What is more, its ever widening positive acceptance and utilization, mostly by younger generations in an increasing number of countries, rather tends to create a reshuffling of the until now established positions occupied by the “traditional” media.

What is more, the formation of the power bloc of the “electronic and new media”, which already enjoys a preponderant position in the media sphere, is part of the “systems” of electronic discourse in present day societies. It already allows us to talk of the “screen culture”.

In the case of Greece, younger generations have expressed verbally and in their everyday life as well, their preference in the new media, and in particular in those belonging to the digital field (from mobile phones, to social media, blogs and so on).

The picture reveals dramatic changes within the time span of ten years (1998-2008), according to the results of the Nielsen Audience Measurement (i.e. formerly AGB) Establishment Survey, as can easily be seen from the table below:

Source Εstablishment Surveys, Nielsen Audience Measurement The formation of new habits concerning media consumption, along with

multitasking, will create a new dynamism in the so-called TV audience measurement, possibly culminating into a “screen culture” audience measurement.

TV-related equipment of households

1998 2003 2008

2+ TV 51.3% 57.2% 69.7%3+ TV 9.7 14.5 25.5Nova - 3.2 8.4DVD/hard disk - 16.6 68.7Video Game equipment

- - 20.8

Home cinema - - 10.9Projector - - 2.0Computer - 29.2 52.5Internet - 18.3 38.7

The level of commercialization determines the kind of research related to audiences.

Concise course for the creation of interest and demand for media research, and especially of the research recording the TV audiences.Level of

commercialization Phase/conjuncture of the electronic media

Levels of use Μethods/techniques for realizing audience research

Initial Only public electronic media under state control are in existence

Simple record and comparability of data

Questionnaire, interview

Intermediate Deregulation-“entrance” of private electronic media

Increase in the needs for programming (e.g. increase in the number of stations, increase in advertising volume

Improved questionnaire, telephone surveys, advent and improvements of the electronic record of TV viewing

Advanced Expansion and domination of the private electronic media

Especially demanding needs for programming at various levels: stations, advertisers, advertising agencies

Generalization of the electronic record of TV viewing.

The procedure is a chain of continuous transformations, starting with

-individuals, each of them with his subjectivity, being transformed into totalities/specific multitudes (9), consisting of sum totals of people.

-at a second stage, totalities are transformed into audiences , with no subjectivity whatsoever.

-and finally, audiences are equipped with a quantitative dimension, actually being a quantitative representation of them (10). Hence, these continuous transformations : individuals totalities audiences their quantitative dimension.

First year for the electronic record of TV-viewing, 1984-1993

Source : Τelevision 96- European key facts, IP

Year Country1984 United Kingdom1985 Switzerland, South Belgium,

Germany1986 Italy1987 USA, Greece, Spain, Finland,

Netherlands1989 Ιreland, North Belgium,

France1990 Portugal1991 Αustria 1992 Denmark, Norway 1993 Sweden

Source: Data processed from H. Amschler, EMRO, 17.4.2005. (**) Developments since 2005 should move France into the Other combinations.

* Countries with an asterisk are those where disputes over the TV audience results have appeared.

The task of an auditor (internal or external) is to evaluate the TAM system and its data quality. In short, to evaluate either one or any combination of the following factors, i.e an ad hoc evaluation: survey universe, Establishment Survey, recruitment & maintenance of the panel, data collection & processing, and the reporting of data.

JIC MOC OS Other combinations

UKBelgiumNetherlandsSwedenFinland

GermanyAustria

Greece*Spain*Portugal*France(**)Switzerland

NorwayDenmark

In spite of the fact that there was established a Committee for the Supervision of the TV Audience Research (EEET in Greek) in cooperation with the Auditing Committee for the Supervision of Research in the Mass Media (EEEMMME in Greek), since this particular committee unfortunately until now at least, falls short of possessing the authority to enforce legal or other steps protecting its lawful interests or a similar well-known and widely acceptable social standing, being rather quite unknown outside the precincts of the advertising industry, disputes and controversies over TAM audience results seem to continue.

Though it should be strongly in favor of promoting and supporting the research industry, by making broadly available the objectives of mass media research in general and of basic TAM procedures in particular to the public at large, thus decomposing the fears and the myths circulating in the public realm related to the functions and the purpose(s) of measurement

Disputes concerning TAM audience research are common in Greece, beginning with TV station Antenna, followed by the state channel ERT and Channel 5, and subsequently by TV station Alpha.

All TAM companies incorporate a continuous internal auditing procedure as a regular part of their specific course of activities.

There is no analytic picture of the process of external auditing in other countries. Specific information is of limited extent. Except for the complete audit of the TV measurement procedure in the U.S.A, taking place quite a number a number of years ago, problems with the TV audience measurement, in the form of controversies, happened in France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Lebanon, Greece, and recently a more extended than an ad hoc external auditing procedure has taken place in Mexico.

But nowhere else the auditing procedure included every single aspect of the procedure over time and continuously every single year (since 1997) as it happens in Greece. Specific ad hoc audits form the vast majority of audits.

The basic prerequisite for the healthy functioning of the mass media environment, in general, is the careful observance of a regulatory frame, and its efforts for its dissemination to the public at large. The chaos and confusion that may result from the violation of this legal frame reflects onto societies, with significant consequences.

The establishment and well-functioning of pertinent institutions and their massive acceptance, along with the suitable regulatory bodies, are the cornerstone for the keeping of a proper behavior in the mass media field. This is the outcome of a continuous struggle taking place in every society.