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What is TAM?
Television, in nearly every country around the world, has become the dominant medium for information, commercial communication and entertainment. This has lead to the ever-increasing desire by broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies, to have accurate, consistent and detailed information about TV audiences.
TAM (Television Audience Measurement) is the specialised branch of media research, dedicated to the quantifying (size) and the qualifying (characteristics) of this detailed TV audience information.
Ratings, the “Common Currency”
With the billions of dollars spent annually on TV programmes and commercials, reliable TV audience information is required to evaluate and maximise the effectiveness of this investment.
Ratings: the percentage of a given population group consuming a medium at a particular moment.
Generally, when used for broadcast medium, one rating point equals one percent of the given population group. These ratings are qualitative in nature, similar to a voting system, where the higher the number of viewers the 'better' the programme or commercial is.
These ratings, if reliable and valid, become the 'common currency' for the market's commercial airtime. Media planners and buyers evaluate the alternative programmes offered to best achieve their advertising goals, broadcasters evaluate the programme or stations popularity and how much to charge an advertisers for commercials during a programme or on a given channel. In those cases where the channels are funded wholly or partly by public license, they also provide accountability.
Reliable, Independent and Transparent Audience Measurement System
In order to provide a country or a market with valid and reliable television audience data, specialist expertise are required.
The system needs to be the result of many years of accumulated relevant experience, research and development together with the ability to evolve with the changes in TV technology, research technology and the Uusers needs of the TV audience measurement TAM systems. A TAM system can be classified as reliable only if the measurement system would yield very similar findings if independently carried out a number of times.
It is independent when the supplier operates from a position of neutrality recognised by all the market players. Close links to one of the interested parties would generate suspicion about the data bias, which would prevent its acceptance as a common currency.
And, it is transparent when every component of the system is comprehensible and accessible to qualified auditing by the market.
Every client of a TAM service should have the right to know exactly how the rating figures are obtained and the ratings should be produced by the research company, according to the regulations and procedures that are well known by the market. Due to the complexity of a TAM system, the most effective way to understand and control it is through an audit, conducted externally on behalf of the entire market.
AGB Nielsen Media Research has always favoured such a practice, as demonstrated by the many audits and appraisals conducted within the Group companies and formalised within many of our client contracts. All the local operating companies of the AGB Nielsen Media Research adopt the proprietary standard TAM system, so that the positive results of any audit are optimally shared by each of them.
Towards a recognised, global standard for TAM Operations
The AGB Nielsen Media Research is committed to the standardisation of all its TAM operations.
This does not imply only the use of state of the art proprietary metering technology, hardware and software, but also a consistent approach in the design of the sample, recruitment of panel homes, production of the database and control of the quality of the process. This has resulted in the creation of standard procedures and operating manuals, and has created the need for regular training courses and a continual process of internal auditing.
AGB Nielsen Media Research Corporate Support Centre receives daily (overnight data production) or weekly, the key production performance indicators from each local operation. These include, for example, the number of homes polled in each country, the number of families discarded during the validation process and the reasons for this, and the number of homes produced in the final daily information.
All AGB Nielsen Media Research standards have been set based upon the guidelines of the ARM - EBU "Towards Global Guidelines for Television Audience Measurement", published in 1999.
This believe in establishing a recognised global standard for TAM operations is particularly important as more and more media companies, advertisers and agencies are ‘going global’ and need true multinational TV audience information. As consolidation continues to sweep through the television advertising industry, and more and more companies establish a global footprint, the need for homogeneous multinational audience research will continue to grow.