Measuring
the Audience
There are
different ways to calculate the number of people
that see an advert. Besides the number of people that see an
advert we are also interested in certain personal
characteristics of the audience, like for example, age, sex
and economic capacity.
You can
find out the number of people that read a certain newspaper or magazine
using various different systems. In Spain, there is an association
that audits the amount of readers certain newspapers have. This association
“is an organization whose objective is to obtain and give out
useful information about the circulation and distribution of national
newspapers. This information can be helpful for advertisers, advertising
agencies, editors and other people that are interested”.
The organization
informs people about how many newspapers and magazines have been sold
and where they have been bought. This organization “establishes
some procedures which are then agreed by the editors which then find
out the distribution figures for a certain period of time”.
We should clarify the concepts:
The audience.
There are different organisms that audit or investigate the newspapers
and magazines audience. For example, in Spain, the organization
is called OJD.
Editions
- the number of copies that have been printed. However, not all
of the copies that are printed are sold. A large number of newspapers
and magazines are sent back without being sold.
Circulation
- this is more important to know than how many copies have been
printed. This tells us the numbers which have really been sold.
Some newspapers are not sold and are therefore sent back. For example,
if 100.000 copies are printed and only 80.000 sold, 10.000 equals
the editions and 80.000 equals the actual number in circulation.
Readers
– the number of readers can be more than the editions sold.
For example, magazines that are left out to read in hairdressers
can be read by hundreds of people while they are waiting. A newspaper
brought by a family can be read by all of the members of the family.
The number
of spectators or readers of newspapers or magazines can be obtained
by certain organizations that specialize in this information. In Spain,
this organization is AIMC.
Television
Audience
You can
find out the size of a television audience through various procedures.
The first procedure is through surveys which ask consumers which programmes
they watched the night before.
You can
also find out more precisely through consumer panel systems.
The system
used to measure audiences has some fundamental elements:
Obtain
a group. You have to find and convince a group of homes to cooperate
with the system. A typical size for a certain sized country is from
3000 to 4000 families. To get the families to cooperate they are
offered presents or money.
The
group should be representative. If 20% of the total population
of a country live in the capital, in our group those in the capital
should also equate to 20%. If in a country 30% of the population
are youths, this should be clearly shown in the country’s
results.
Carry
out a survey to obtain demographic information about the families
that are participating in the research. Information like age, sex,
income, number of children, profession, accommodation and certain
social facts.
You
can connect a device to the television or telephone. The
devise is a small computer which knows when the television is switched
on, the times it is switched on and the programmes you are watching.
Everyone
in the family has an assigned number. They should each press
a button which corresponds to them so that the device knows if they
are a child, mother in law, mother, dog or if nobody is watching
the television. As the people that participate in this kind of experiment
don’t usually push the button an automatic system is currently
being developed which will recognize your face and voice.
The
devise automatically sends the information to the research company’s
central computer, and gives them the information about the television
consumption of the different members of the family.
The
central computer accumulates the information coming from the different
households, filtering some of the common errors and organizes the
information.
The
research companies analyze the information that the system has
given them. This information tells us about the popularity of certain
programmes. The commercial television channels then decide which
programmes to eliminate and which programmes have potential. The
publicity agencies use this information to decide which television
channel to use to place product adverts and the times.
For
example, if we have a food item which we want to sell to urban youths,
the computer programme which administers the information obtained
will tell us which television channel to use and the times we should
place our advert so that it will be seen by this type of youth.
Internet
Audience
There
are a few companies that investigate internet audiences. OJD is
popular in Spain as they audit a part of the most important Spanish
pages. Media Metrix and Nielsen are examples of International internet
analysis companies in Europe.
