A more accurate measurement of TV viewing

The AGB Nielsen Research Group recently launched its new (and expanded) television audience measurement (NUTAM) research program that involves the installation of television panels to monitor the viewing (and zapping) habits of Filipinos to help advertisers get a more accurate size and definite profile of their target audiences.

NUTAM–the expanded AGBNielsen Media Research panel– is the first national TV viewing panel in the country covering 1,600 homes representing 7.2 million urban households in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, or 90 percent of total urban population.

AGB Nielsen Media Research is the leading TV audience measurement (TAM) company operating globally. With over 42,000 homes participating in its panels across 30 countries, it has more people-meters installed worldwide than other TAM providers.

AGB Nielsen’s Media Research is fully integrated proprietary system that provides an independent, reliable and transparent audience measurement system that TV broadcasters, ad agencies and advertisers worldwide rely on everyday, said Maya Reforma, AGBN Media Research general manager.

NUTAM also takes a closer look at metro cities, through MCTAM, composed of the cities of Metro Manila in Luzon , Metro Cebu and the fast growing Iloilo in the Visayas and Metro Davao in Mindanao .

In Metro Manila for instance, NUTAM covers TV panels distributed in 400 homes with an estimated 10.362 million individuals in the TV homes or a total of 2.316 million TV homes, said Reforma.

The other research samples came from North and Central Luzon with 300 panels; South Luzon, 300 panels; Visayas with 400 panels and Mindanao with 200 panels or a total of 1,600 panels (including Metro Manila).

An establishment survey conducted earlier by AGB Nielsen Media Research showed that 70 percent of national urban households belong to the DE socio economic class with an average five members per household. About half of individuals are within the extremities of age and 26 percent in their 2-12 years of age while 23 percent are 40 or more.

Nearly nine out of 10 (or 89 percent) of households own a TV set although cable penetration is only at 21 percent skewed towards ABC segments.

Luzon has the most ABC class homes with 30 percent; it has the most number of small families (of 4 members or below) at 46 percent; it registers the highest TV ownership with 92 percent and cable penetration at 23 percent, explained Menchie Esteban, Philippines Director of AGB Nielsen.

Visayas has the largest share of class E homes at 29 percent with almost 60 percent of households having 5 or more members in the family; it has the lowest TV ownership at 78 percent and cable penetration is also low at 12 percent, she added.

Mindanao has the largest share of D homes at 60 percent and the largest percentage of homes with kids at 64 percent; TV penetration is at 85 percent and cable is at eight percent.

The TAM methodology, like other AGB operations, begins with an establishment survey.

This year, 4,350 face to face interviews were held to determine the current TV landscape. The survey results establish the composition of the viewing panel that will be measured.

Next comes recruiting families willing to collaborate with the installation of people- meters in the TV sets of the identified households and training the families on its proper use.

Each working TV set is equipped with remote control but only one people-meter is connected to the phone line or GSM network for data downloading. The rest of the people-meters pass their data to the "master" people-meter.

Each night, data for the day from the meters are downloaded via phone lines or GSM by the Pollux located at the AGB Philippines offices. The Pollux is AGB’s proprietary software that prompts the retrieval of viewing data. After this, data are consolidated, validated and expanded to obtain viewing data of the highest quality.

All data are logged in the Telepad, another proprietary software for TV events monitoring. The events are fed to Pollux for consolidation with the viewing data for a complete TV viewing behavior data.

For data analysis, AGB has a proprietary software suit for users to maximize the potentials of data through the AGB Workstation which is composed of telemonitor (for viewing behavior analysis); telespot for ad campaigns and expenditure analysis and ADplan for ad campaign planning.