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What are they
watching...
are you sure?
TELEVISION
MARK WALLACE
THE AUSTRALIAN tele
vision industry will be
turned on its ear when
the Peoplemeter system of rat
ings is adopted in the major
metropolitan markets next
year.
If unofficial reports from tests
carried out this year are to be be
lieved, all the programs generally
accepted as being popular will have
to prove themselves again. Those
tests indicated that the flaws sus
pected as being inherent in the diary
system of audience measurement
are real, not imagined.
Going by a case before the Feder
al Court last week, McNair Ander
son, which has been conducting
television ratings surveys in the me
tropolitan cities as well as the re
gional areas since 1974, appears to
have lost its bid to continue con
ducting the surveys in metropolitan
Australia.
This could be of indirect, but ma-'
jor benefit to'regional operators
such as WIN, Capital and Prime,
some of whom have been seething
for about 18 months about what
they consider to be an unsatisfacto
ry service. McNair's failure to land
the Peoplemeter contracts has,
some believe, increased the bargain
ing power of the regional stations.
There is no prospect of People
meters being introduced in Can
berra in the foreseeable future, but
there is a prospect that the ratings
service being supplied to Canberra's
beleaguered commercial stations
will be improved. At least that is
what the stations will be pushing for
when representatives of each station
meet McN airs to sought out the
mess.
While none of the stations were
prepared to divulge the fees charged
by McNairs, between the three.sta
tions, hundreds of thousands of dol
lars are being paid for the four
four-week surveys each year.
But McNairs won't take kindly
to implications that their service is
inadequate. They are supplying no
more or less than the stations agreed
to pay for last year, but at least one
station is making no secret of its
dissatisfaction while others believe
the service is no more than ade
quate.
So what is wrong with the figures
as provided?
For a start, much of the informa
tion that is gleaned from them is
next to useless. It takes up to four
weeks for the results to be obtained,
which is little comfort for program
mers, who are already hamstrung by
the need to take so much from the
affiliated network.
Even if they do come up with a
strategy to make their schedules
more competitive, the time it takes
to get any feedback on that strategy
virtually cancels its effectiveness.
The one basic flaw in ratings is
that no matter how hard you look,
you can never say that on a given
night, more people watched pro
gram X than program Y. McNairs
provides only an average for each
time-slot over the four weeks of the
survey.
Which is .fine for programs that
go to air at the same time each night
of the week, such - as the news,
Neighbours, A Current Affair, or
Hinck. In those cases, it can be
shown that Neighbours is more pop
ular than AC A and Hinch in Can
berra, but not elsewhere, because its
average rating is higher, which is all
anyone in this market really needs
to know.
Better figures
Where it falls down, however, is
in the programs such as Beyond
2000, which may find itself up
against a movie on one statioq and
American cop show on another in
the first week of the survey, then
various other forms of competition
for the other three weeks.
It may well average better figures
than its opposition, but the result is
of little help to the programmer who
cannot tell whether the program
rates well through a steady following
or by default through poor showings
by the competition on two or three
of the weeks in survey.
But you get only what you pay for
in this world. There is no doubt that
if the stations want figures for each
week's programs in all three mar
kets, they could get it. But they
would have to pay a lot more.
The metropolitan networks are
already paying much more than
those in the regions, but McNairs
would have to charge even more
than that were they asked to match
the metropolitan service in Can
berra, WoUongong and the Central
West. In Sydney, for example, if you
disseminate 500 ratings diaries to as
many homes, it is a simple matter to
collect them at the end of the week.
But try covering an area that spans
from WoUongong, to Eden, to the
Snowy Mountains, Canberra,
Wagga and then as far out as places
like Coonabarabran. No simple
task.
Those problems, however, come
from the programming depart
ments. The main use of ratings fig
ures is as a tool for the sales
departments, and as far as they are
concerned, there is probably not
much point in spending any more
money on ratings surveys.
A salesman will point to ratings
that have been recorded in Sydney
and Melbourne as evidence that a
client's money is well worth spend
ing on a 30-second spot during an
upcoming block-buster movie.
The salesman can't realistically
use last week's ratings to sell time
during next week's movie, because
the two have nothing in common.
Just because one movie does well
does not mean the next will.
The salesman can, however, use
last week's results by Neighbours to
sell lime during next week's epi
sodes of Neighbours. The product is
the same, so the client can make an
educated decision. But as we've al
ready seen, the existing arrange
ments for the programs that go to air
at the same time each night or week,
are acceptable, albeit inexact
So it boils down to a fight be
tween the sales department and the
programming department and the
cold, hard truth is that the depart
ment that brings the money in car
ries more weight.
If the stations can get McNairs to
give more detail for the same mon
ey, based on a need to keep what few
customers they have left happy,
then well and good. But that would
probably mean more households
being surveyed and the distances to
be covered are just too great for the
costs of that to be absorbed.
So my guess is that even if there is
a bun-fight between the stations and
McNairs, not much will change in
the way ratings are gathered be
tween now and next year.
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