Limits of traditional methodology

Although the people-meter method is considered to be the main approach for researching television audience behaviour and an applied currency for the industry in most television nations in the world, the practice of television ratings measurement is often evaluated and discussed by the profession and within the sciences. Researchers accept the “ratings-industry” in general (Bourdon & Méadel, 2011) and “one could write that ratings give a decent approximation of television viewing, as defined at a certain time, in a certain context, under certain requirements, by and for certain actors”, (p. 9).

Morley argues that “observing behaviour [of a TV viewer] always leaves open the question of interpretation” (2010, p. 172). Should the researcher wish to better understand television viewer behavior, but does not want to simply reduce the observation to the question of whether or not the television set is on or off, more interpretation and data are necessary.

“What is needed is not simply improved techniques of audience measurement (pace the

‘passive-peoples’ debate) but improved methods of audience research […], so that we cannot only measure what different types of audience do, but also understand how and why they do as they do” (Morley, 2010, p. 167; Wober, 1981, cited in Morley).

Furthermore it is generally presumed that “the audience is measurable and “accounted”

for in the literal sense of being expressed as numbers or proportions, whether actual or estimated” (McQuail, 1997, p. 57).

The people meter system methodology reports if the television set was on. The system is designed to track behaviour but cannot submit information regarding whether or not the member of the television-panel household actually followed the show. Furthermore, there is no information about a positive or negative opinion of the television viewer.

The fact that the television household tuned into the program is equated with the assumption that the television household watched the show and was not doing anything else at the same time. The panel viewers must manually tell the device that they do not want to watch television anymore. What also seems to be problematic is the panel’s representativeness of the national television audience. The composition of the panel in respect to size and audience is crucial and if the panel is not representative and the rate of panel responses is low, even increasing panel sizes cannot solve the problem (Bjur, 2009). To improve the quality of data, the number of panel households in Croatia has been expanded over recent years. The people

meter data is subject to measurement errors as technical problems may also arise as a result of the reliability of the panel members. How could it be verified that the household member really pressed the button of the panel remote control on time? Regional problems arise, such as long summer breaks in Croatia, and absence of panel households. Measurement is not performed in summer residences during summer time. In Turkey, Nielsen tried to remedy this problem and started the first summer viewing measurement project in 2008, where the people-meters were installed in the summer residences of the households.

Only in some countries portable people meters are used. Besides the methodological challenges of the people-meter, with the increasingly digital and fragmented television environment, audience measurement research is facing new demands. The developing of the internet and the transformation of media habits, have led to reduced television consumption numbers worldwide based on television ratings information. The consumption of television programs has become more mobile and non-linear.

With the introduction of digital set-top boxes new data was available to the researcher providing information via the return-path channel of the box, virtually down to the second, even for the most fragmented television markets. This raised the question about whether census based methods of television audience measurement rather than sample based data of television tuning behaviour could be a better way of gathering data about audiences (Buzzard, 2012). People meter systems are not capable of handling massive fragmentation while set-top boxes could gather data (Buzzard, 2012). Not only was the fragmentation essential, but also the habits of audiences and how people watch television. Television consumption on different devices is more and more typical for the younger generations, who are even starting to have no television set at home. How could the phenomenon of mobile television consumption on second and third devices such as computers, smartphones, and tablets be addressed?

Nielsen plans to expand panels and methodologies and began in 2009 by including internet in the television ratings currency (Buzzard, 2012). They started in the US, where internet viewing and time-shifted television consumption already play a signification role.

While initially the people meter methodology could be easily adapted and established in different media systems, the fragmented digital television markets is getting more diversified and national differences demand different television audience measurement methodology, depending on development of the individual television markets.

Although the people-meter method is often critised, at the moment there is no equivalent alternative which would submit data at the same standard regularly to the industry.

Lotz (2007) argues that television at the turn of the twenty-first century remains as important as ever but has fundamentally changed as the result of technological innovations, proliferating channels in fragmented markets targeting niche audiences, and new forms of advertising.

Therefore, many conventional practices and even basic business models are proving not suitable resulting in a crisis of norms and practices.

Professional audience research is developed and belongs to industry and business, (Bjur, 2009), continuously producing data of audience behaviour for commercial purposes, while the other source is the audience research produced in academia (Weibull and Webster et al., citied in Bjur, 2009). “Knowledge production from both these sources have, since the advent of broadcasting, built our present image of audience behaviour and have provided provisional truths regarding when, how and why individuals engage in media use and media content consumption” (p. 28).

Is it possible to provide a clearer picture of the “present image” of audience behaviour with social media analytics? The following chapter will investigate this question: if social media activity in the context of television can be analysed in a way that could make it an additional source of information to better understand television audiences.