Why Measure Volume of Coverage?
This section explains traditional
forms of the media, notably television and the press. Globally, more than 85 countries have
official audience measurement systems. These service the local TV and
advertising industries in each country. Many rights holders incorporate a
requirement into their TV contracts that expect rights holding broadcasters to
deliver confirmation of broadcast and if applicable or available, TV audience data. Such data might be:
- Cumulative audience, which combines individual
programme audiences together. It does not differentiate unique viewers. For
example, if there were four broadcasts with viewing figures of (say) 2m, 1.5m,
1m and 2.5m, then the cumulative audience would be 7m. This does not necessarily mean that 7m
different people watched an event-related broadcast.
- Peak audience during a particular
programme. If there are different
programmes covering an event the peak audiences across each programme can be
used to infer an 'at least' position for the unique number of viewers in the
absence of more detailed information from the broadcaster. For example, if there were four broadcasts
with peak viewing of 2m, 1.5m, 1m and 2.5m then a reasonable assumption in the
absence of more detailed data would be that at least 2.5m different people
watched the event programming. This is a better measure than cumulative
audience.
- Unique audience (or actual reach) measures
the number of different individuals watching live or delayed broadcast coverage. Reach de-duplicates the audience and counts
each person as viewing a series of event programmes only once, as opposed to adding
together the audience across many programmes or alternatively taking an average
audience. For a multi-day sports event,
reach will capture any viewer that watches any event broadcast, but only
measure them once (i.e. unique viewers).
Hence, if John watched two broadcasts of an event and Jim three
broadcasts they would be counted once each, making the reach two.
The volume of coverage provides a
measure of an event's popularity and is particularly important to local
organising committees and stakeholders with an interest in promoting a host
area, nationally or internationally. While AVE measures of what on-screen
exposure would have cost to purchase commercially are often commissioned by
events with larger budgets, those with smaller budgets may be more pragmatic
and report the number of unique viewers or 'reach' as an indication of the popularity
of their event.
Download - Volume of Coverage Toolkit (.pdf)