Taylor Nelson Sofres is set to roll out TV ratings research in
Taiwan with a Peoplemeter panel comprising 2,700 households, nearly
three times that of the current ACNielsen panel.
Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) managing director Jim Sailor told MEDIA the
first daily rating report will be available in the second quarter of
2001, providing TV ratings for all terrestrial, cable and digital TV
channels.
Of the total number of panel households, 1,500 will come from TNS'
current consumer study panel; Mr Sailor said the new Peoplemeter system
will implement picture matching technology to measure digital TV.
"We're currently gathering client support from agencies and TV stations
and the reactions have been extremely positive," he said.
It is understood that TV media owners in Taiwan want to ultimately
replace ACNielsen's TV ratings with the new TNS report, in a bid to push
accountability of the data to attract advertising.
Taiwan media owners are currently questioning the accountability of
ACNielsen's TV ratings report, as the existing Peoplemeter panel of 800
individual households (which will be increased to 1,000 from June) is
deemed insufficient to measure viewership.
Cable TV owners raised the fact that the ACNielsen results, which
generally report less than one rating point for cable TV - even for the
popular cable channels - do not reflect true viewership of the
medium.
"How could we still be surviving if our rating points were really still
that low?" asked one cable TV owner.
