Thailand: Nielsen plans new TV-audience measurement survey

To open a new chapter in the advertising and broadcasting industry, Nielsen (Thailand) is launching a television audience measurement survey for cable and satellite TV.

"The new television audience measurement, to be kicked off today, will be added both in the national database [or TV rating database] and analytical reports divided by channels," managing director Sinthu Peatrarut said last week.

The cable and satellite TV industry has been operating in the country for more than a decade. The first turning point came in 2006, when the Public Relations Department - which was responsible for granting and renewing broadcasting licences for cable and satellite TV stations - agreed to let them show up to six minutes of commercials per hour to help them operate a sustainable business.

Penetration grew sharply from 2006-10 and last year hit 50 per cent or 20 million households. This includes TrueVisions and cable and satellite TV. Some advertisers also began spending on those media outlets. Besides the change in broadcasting regulations was the sharp fall in the prices of KU- and C-band satellite dishes and set-top boxes. This coincided with affordable LCD TV sets entering the market.

Nielsen has been conducting establishment surveys with a sample size of 6,000 to monitor the trends in the cable and satellite TV business for 12 years. After witnessing a big jump in penetration over the last five years, Nielsen embarked on a pilot project last year to design a proper TV audience measurement for cable and satellite operators to ensure that advertisers can have confidence in allocating budgets to these media outlets.

This can be considered as a big step forward for the industry, where cable and satellite TV operators, advertisers, advertising agencies, content producers and providers can officially trade common currency in the Kingdom. Nielsen uses advanced people-meter measurement technology to gauge the viewing habits of cable and satellite TV audiences. It will detect from satellite frequencies when people tune in and watch each channel. This will be a part of the measurement.

Once the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission grants licences for digital terrestrial TV developers and operators and they begin running programmes, the firm will promptly apply this technology to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting.

Ad spending via cable and satellite TV is about Bt3 billion, equivalent to only 5-6 per cent of Bt60 billion via free TV - ThaiTV3, channels 5 and 7, Modernine TV and NBT.

Although cable and satellite TV stations have their own rating measurement, that does not mean that ad spending from free TV will be allocated to both platforms as much as their penetration grows, due to two key factors. One is the affordability of satellite TV dishes and sets and cable TV sets and the quality of TV programmes and the other is the progress to full penetration or closer to the current state of free TV.

According to the latest survey of Nielsen Thailand, the country has more than 500 satellite TV channels and more than 300 cable TV channels.

WATCHIRANONT THONGTEP
THE NATION
April 2, 2012 1:00 am