Media Metrics and Analytics Lecture 2 2 Legacy

Media Metrics and Analytics Lecture 2 -2 Legacy Metrics and Analytics

“Legacy” Media is Not Dead • Newspapers, magazines, radio, and television have seen erosion of their markets, but still are an important factor in media • Television, and television news, are actually pretty healthy • And print is still an important agenda-setter, even if readership has declined

Other Reasons Why Legacy Media are Important • Also, understanding legacy media gives insight into the history of our quest to measure • Metrics were – and still are, to an extent – broad estimates but were the best we had • Like umpires calling balls and strikes, we knew that there was inherent error but lived with it

Problems with Legacy Media Measurement Among the errors… • Inexact measurement methods, such as having people fill out diaries – even if they were not fluent in the language • Uncertainty as to what the figures meant – say, if someone were watching television, we didn’t know how closely

However, the Measures were the Best We Had • Sort of a mutual agreement that everyone played by the same rules, even if the method of enforcing the rules was flawed • But as we’ll see, even though online measurement can be much more specific, we’re still not sure if what we are measuring reflects value • Example: Do we count raw pageviews or some other form of engagement

Newspaper Circulation • Circulation was coin of the realm • Fueled subscription sales, and subscription sales are coveted because all money is paid in advance – publisher gets, for example, a year’s worth of income before producing the product

Problems in Measuring Newspaper Circulation • Circulation is not the same thing as readership • Readership = people who read the publication, including the same issue of the publication • Readership includes “pass along” – which must be inferred from surveys • Surveys can involve guesswork

Other Problems in Newspaper Circulation • Hard to tell how many were actually sold by wholesalers • Unsold copies might not be counted or returned at a later date • Hard to determine how closely someone read publication…again, involves surveys, interviews, and some guesswork • Newspapers have even tried “eye tracking”

Magazine Circulation Measurement • Magazines have different methods of distribution that newspapers • Free or controlled circulation more common in magazine world than in newspapers • Magazines tend to have more “durability” – TV Guide was an example • Some durable magazines can have 15 or more readers

Problems in Measuring Magazine Circulation and Readership • Hard to count durability, magazines’ biggest strength • Also, if given away free or even sold, still complicated to ensure what is actually sold (as well as what is actually read) • Hard to get an accurate sample with a small sample size • Audit Bureau of Circulation

Radio and Television Ratings • Broadcast and cable ratings broken down by daypart and sometimes into very specific demographics • Demographics are particularly important to radio because radio often sells to a highly segmented audience • Desirable (all-news) vs. less profitable (albumoriented rock) demos

Radio and Television Demographics Measure Many Different Things • Demographics – sex, age, etc. • Time of day – vitally important to radio • Listeners and viewers for specific programs and program segments • Tune-out

Examples of How Ratings Work • Remember, “ratings” is a broad category in its informal meaning AND a specific term • Rating, in precise meaning, is portion of total viewing or listening audience (“universe”) • Ratings often applied to specific demographic • Share is percentage of listeners or views actually tuned in…a radio share of 7 means 7 percent of all listeners actually using a radio were listening to the particular station

More on Ratings… • AQH – average quarter hour persons – a complicated measure that basically means how many people tuned in for at least five minutes during each 15 -minute segment • AQH is basically a measure trying to quantify a meaningful amount of listenership

More on Ratings… • Cume – Cumulative audience, meaning unduplicated audience over a specified period of time • Turnover – In broad terms, how many listeners are replaced by new listeners, derived from a calculation involving AQH and cume.

Problems with Ratings… • It’s hard to be precise because we don’t know the level of engagement a listener or viewer has • While television ratings companies have tried to come up with ways to monitor viewers without being too intrusive, it’s hard to tell how many are watching a set and how closely they are paying attention • Demographic information can be vague because it is often self-reported or based on small surveys

A Few Other Concepts • Gross impressions – How many times a commercial is heard by a person (any person, even the same person) • Reach – How many different listeners hear a message • Frequency – Number of times a theoretical listener hears a particular commercial

Have You Noticed a Few Common Concepts? • Ratings and circulation figures try, given their limitations, to come up with meaningful numbers • We want to know who we are reaching and how often • We want to be able to separate unique people from returning people in our samples • We also want to know if the people we are reaching stay with us • We are limited by fundamental measurement problems

What’s Ahead • We’ll see how those common concepts have evolved along with the media • Specifically, we’ll examine how digital technology can measure and report with astonishing precision • And the examination begins with the what is probably the most important media company in history -- Google