TV Audience Measurement in Europe: Do Advertisers Really Know What They are Paying for?

The paper aims at exploring the models of organization of TV audience measurement systems and applied methodologies with regard to transparency, reliability and overall usefulness in media planning. TV audience measurement has a long tradition in Europe. Broadcasters and advertisers (and advertising/media buying agencies) have always been interested in capturing viewership of TV programs. Both have been using the measured data in decision making, the former for the purpose of program scheduling and air-time sales and the latter for choosing the right media outlets and TV programs for their advertising campaigns. TV rating as a percentage of homes watching a particular TV program have been coined as generally accepted “currency†used in air-time sales. This measure has also been used to calculate GRPs (total rating points achieved in a defined period of time) while shaping media plans and evaluating the effects of advertising campaigns. While it seems that the underlying logic is quite sound and the measured data may be used for evidence-based decision making, one may still question its usefulness in regard to the applied methodologies as well as the overall transparency and reliability of the model of organization of an audience measurement system (AMS). Three models of organization of AMS have been applied in Europe, including own service (OS), media owned company (MOC) and joint industry committee (JIC). The paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of the named models, while focusing on the panel sizes, research methods and defined universe resulting from different models of organization of AMS. Based on two case study analyses (the Czech Republic and Serbia) we claim that JIC as a model of organization of AMS contributes to provision of measured data of higher quality judging by the reliability of data, transparency and equal access to all interested parties of the market.