Audience measurement is important in media especially in broadcast media for reaching markets effectively. Ratings play important role in TV show success and in India and America TV shows need audiences to attract advertisers. Devyani famous actress in Tamil used to get Rs 60000 for one episode in famous Kolangal TV series. ABC TV anchor in America Peter Jennings used to earn millions of dollars for TV anchoring it was told.
Doordarshan has been doing Audience Research since 1990s and its director BS Chandrasekar submitted several years audience research handbooks. It contains all details like demographic and psychographic information and who actually watches cable and non-cable details like. Market Research companies have been conducting media research and these report to media owners or clients.
Set top boxes are installed in TV sets in India and US to know which program people are watching. This will reveal how many hours TV is tuned and who watches what kind program like cable noncable etc. Market Research agencies in TN conduct audience measurement and submit to Doordarshan and it files report on it and this has been happening also
Cable TV is more popular and lower income groups and those who don’t have access to cable watch Doordarshan. Years ago, mega serials as Ramayana Mahabharatha Krishna broadcast on Doordarshan for huge advertisers and after cable came into being its profits fell greatly. Now cable’s mega serials as SunTV’s Chithi and Kolangal have attracted commercials in a big way and ran for years also.
There are two broad meth of sampling – probability and non-probability method of sampling. Probability means every member of the population can get selected for study and non-probability it is not like it. Probability methods are simple random stratified sampling and others while nonprobability methods are convenient sampling and the like.
Simple random is done using lottery method or from random tables and stratified random is done using stratification based on age sex or different categories etc. Sampling is taught in survey classes or statistics classes also
Surveys content analysis and controlled experiments are most talked about in communication Research. In his classes on Audience Measurement Dr Gerald V Flanner prof of Communication discussed rating methods in TV shows during 1984 Fall classes. Highly rated shows in US would run more earn more according to him.
Market research collects market data or intelligence, and audience measurement is connected to it in collection of data. Data analysis and measurement is done manually or in using computers and qualitative analysis is also done. Qualitative research is more open-ended questions and like focus groups or one to one method of collecting data Ethnographic research is living with someone observing and collecting information etc.
TV research is also done academically in the US and India, and they have focused on violence and objectionable content in TV and media. Children are focused in such studies and how much children view violence etc. are undertaken.
Finally, audience measurement is going to be focusing on TV broadcast and online media, and such studies are needed to be conducted more in upcoming days
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