I’m not an expert on the newest techniques to measure television watching, regardless of the company. But I do remember visiting the Nielsen headquarters in Florida once to review the ratings diaries. These were the hand-written booklets filled out by viewers, day-by-day, hour-by-hour, listing what they watched on TV. This was the 1990s, and I […]
I’m not an expert on the newest techniques to measure television watching, regardless of the company.
But I do remember visiting the Nielsen headquarters in Florida once to review the ratings diaries.
These were the hand-written booklets filled out by viewers, day-by-day, hour-by-hour, listing what they watched on TV.
This was the 1990s, and I remember thinking even then, “how cute, look, this is how they kept track of who watched what way back when TV first started.”
Apparently, the measurement of who watches what on TV and when has improved since then, gotten more scientific and accurate.
So stations have to keep up with these changes to make sure they get proper measurement in the core demographics of adults 25-54.
And that’s exactly what was going on at KFMB in San Diego this past November sweeps period. KFMB is the CBS affiliate there owned by Midwest Television.
KFMB wanted to try to navigate Nielsen’s changes in methodology “to determine the best content and promotion for our local audience even while our demographic ‘assignment’ was coming out of market,“ said Mike Stewart, KFMB’s creative services director.
Huh? Yes, it’s confusing, and I’ll attempt to explain what Nielsen is doing in this market and others like it as best I can in a minute. But first, KFMB’s results and how they achieved some of them.
KFMB won the local TV race in San Diego, dominating first place in every local newscast during the November ratings sweep, according to the station.
According to Stewart, KFMB got more strategic and analytical in November.
“We beefed up our cable buy using research to determine which cable channels our 25-54 viewers were most likely watching before they switched over to our station. We also placed a more substantial Facebook buy than we have in the past. We were able to focus our efforts on a more specific viewer demographic using Facebook. For both outside media methods, we used co-op dollars from our syndicators to promote their programs and our 11 p.m. newscasts on specific days of the week.”
Here are four promos for two special reports. The first is the one that aired on cable; the second was posted to Facebook.
“Having high-quality, relevant and compelling content with the right promotion strategy is a recipe for success,” said Stewart.
So what about that controversial change in the methodology that Nielsen implemented in San Diego?
I found an article, Viewers Assignment Is Here, on LinkedIn by Jennifer Love, a market media research director, which tries to explain how it works.
So, here’s a quick look at how Viewer Assignment will work:
Home A (in my DMA) is watching 5-5:30 p.m. local news on my station (the local NBC affiliate).
Nielsen will then look at ALL the National People Meter (NPM) homes that are also watching the NBC affiliate in their respective markets in my time zone from 5-5:30 p.m. on that same day.
Then, Nielsen will analyze the demographic composition of those NPM households to see which NPM home most closely matches my local Home A.
Once the best match is determined, that NPM home becomes the “donor” home, and ratings credit is assigned for all the possible viewers in the home based on how the donor home reported viewing on their electronic measurement box (rather than a paper diary). Thus the viewing is “assigned” based on the best-matched donor home.
Still confused? Here’s another article about it.
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