BackKantar to mine set-top box TV viewership data
CEO Eric Salama says firm may need to install its software in set-top boxes; proposal draws mixed response from media buyers
Premium
New Delhi: Advertisers and television channels will soon have access to second-by-second information on the television viewing habits of Indian consumers—not just what shows they watch but also whether they are switching channels to skip an ad and how much time they spend in front of the TV set.
Detailed household viewership patterns are set to be collected by the global audience measurement and consumer insights firm Kantar Media Research, a unit of London-based advertising company WPP Plc., from digital set-top boxes installed in the homes of both direct-to-home and cable television subscribers.
Kantar’s global chairman and chief executive officer Eric Salama said the company will announce its plans by the end of the year through two deals with local firms. He declined to name the companies he is signing up with.
Salama’s plans for India’s television audience measurement market follow an announcement by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) that it had in principle chosen Médiamétrie, a French audience measurement company, as its technology partner in the ratings business.
BARC was formed last year as a joint industry body to set up a new television monitoring system, in response to increasing complaints and protests by broadcasters against the existing service provider, TAM Media Research.
In India, TAM Media Research is a 50:50 joint venture between Nielsen (India) Pvt. Ltd and Kantar Media Research.
Salama, who was in India to sort out the issues around TAM, expressed surprise at BARC’s recent announcement on Médiamétrie. “We have not seen any official announcements. Setting up a new service in India will take a long time," he said.
However, he said Kantar Media will continue to invest in its panel and services. “We are as committed as ever to India," he said. The company plans to move into rural India for audience research and expand its urban sample size.
Kantar works in the audience measurement sector in markets across the world such as the US, the UK, China, India and Brazil. It measures multi screens—mobile devices, Internet television and tablets—in the UK and time-shifted viewing in many countries.
“We are the largest collector of set-top box data. In the UK, the biggest company is Sky and we collect all of Sky’s set-top box data," he said.
The firm also collects set-top box data from cable operators in the US and China.
Salama said set-top box data offers very granular information. “What it doesn’t give you though is the same representativeness as the data is collected only from, say, one platform operator. So you need both—you need the depth that comes from set-top box data, plus you need the representativeness across the television viewing universe (that comes from so-called peoplemeters). For us, it is important to get both those right," Salama said.
Although, he did not name the platforms Kantar will be working with in order to collect data, he said the firm may need to install its software in set-top boxes. Kantar may first start by collecting data from select homes with set-top boxes. “Normally, we would go for selection, though in the UK we collect all of Sky’s data," he said. In the US, Kantar has tied up with DirecTV to collect data from the latter’s subscribers and is in the process of ramping up the number of homes it gathers information on viewership habits from.
Can platform owners collect and sell their own data? “It comes back to the skills involved. Everyone thinks it is easy. You cannot imagine the data collected from a single set-top box. It is millions of bytes of information. Multiply that by 200 million viewers in India. It is a huge amount of information to collect, store and analyse."
Media buyers at advertising agencies had a mixed response to the proposed set-top box viewership information although all the three media buyers spoken to declined to be named, given the controversy around TAM and the announcement of Médiamétrie as the new ratings partner of BARC.
A media planner at a large independent media agency said peoplemeters—a separate box where each family member is assigned a personal viewing button—give demographic depth. “So we get viewership information which is gender- and age-specific. The set-top box data sounds more like household data. If they add a layer of ‘who’ is watching, it would be useful," the person said.
The chief executive of another media buying agency said Kantar’s plans sound more like a strategy to stay in the audience measurement business in the country, where the joint industry body BARC has appointed a new technology partner for television ratings. “Probably, it is a way to get into what it has lost out on," he said.
A buying expert at a Mumbai-based media conglomerate said set-top boxes in India are not “two-way addressable"—that is, they do not send signals back, which is a must for data to be thrown back. “However, if the boxes are made two-way, the data will be useful in addition to the existing viewership data. They may be tying up with an Internet-enabled direct-to-home (DTH) or a cable network operator which can offer this service," he said.
Ashok Mansukhani, a cable industry expert and director at IndusInd Media and Communications Ltd, agreed: “Currently India has plain vanilla boxes. They would need to upgrade these for such a service. But most multi-system operators (MSOs, or larger cable operators) have launched their digital services even in smaller towns, which make this kind of viewership data valuable."
According to Jawahar Goel, promoter and managing director at Dish TV India Ltd, the DTH business of the Zee group, there are close to 50 million digital homes, including DTH households, in India today. “Set-top box data may be very useful for broadcasters from a programming point of view. There may be some bottlenecks now, but that is the way audience measurement would move in the future."
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
