Page 76 - Living Room WarsDesprately Seeking the Audience Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World

Desperately seeking the audience 64
of providing demographic information on a programme’s audience composition
overnight (which is several weeks faster than the now rejected paper-and-pencil diary
method). Smaller audience segments may now be detected and described, allowing
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advertisers and broadcasters to create more precise demographic targets. Furthermore,
because the people meter provides continuous, on-line data, daily, all year long, it
becomes possible to accumulate longitudinal data on an individual’s viewing
behaviour—which was not possible with the diary technique because the diaries were
typically only filled out by a sample family every four weeks. As a result, people meter
data are able to reveal, for example, what percentage of women between 25 and 54
watched the second episode of a programme, or what percentage of men between 18 and
34 watched both the first-run and repeat of a football game, or, during an advertising
campaign, what percentage of any demographic category has seen one commercial break,
a second, a third, and so on (Broadcasting 17 September 1984; 5 January 1987;
Ehrenberg and Wakshlag 1987). In sum, the people meter yields such a dazzling array of
data, that, in the words of Mal Beville (1986a:53), ‘the dramatic increase in volume of
figures…will challenge the talent of the best number-crunchers in the business’.
The people meter can make hitherto hidden and unknown minutiae in aggregated
viewing habits visible, and opens up the potential of drawing a new, more detailed map
of the audience. In line with the cartographic metaphor, it could be said that the old map
was no longer adequate as guide in the rocky terrain of the television business, because
more traffic is now on the road, making careful driving more necessary. The new map
should enable finding the correct signposts and avoiding the danger zones more
efficiently. This, at least, is what the entire industry is in agreement about. The people
meter was embraced by the industry at a time when changes in the television landscape
had made the old, rather schematic map of the streamlined audience obsolete. The timing
was perfect: the new situation called for new solutions, or at least new ways of
satisfactorily smoothing out the escalating contradictions and disputes over ‘television
audience’ which came with it. The people meter provided the promise of such a solution.
But the transition to the people meter did not take place without any resistance. As
with many a new beginning, the introduction of the people meter was accompanied with
excitement, controversy and ambivalence. The big three networks especially were less
than happy with it. Not surprisingly so, because test results of the new instrument
consistently produced over-all ratings that were 5 to 10 per cent lower than those arrived
at with the old measurement system. For example, in August 1987, when Nielsen’s old
and new systems were temporarily operating simultaneously, there were 1.3 million
fewer households watching the tube according to the people meter data (San Francisco
Chronicle 17 August 1987). The most popular programmes seemed to suffer most. For
example, the audience for NBC’s The Cosby Show was estimated to be 10 to 15 per cent
smaller by the people meter (Broadcasting 7 September 1987). Given the enormous
financial repercussions of such declines, it is no wonder that the networks were quite
reluctant in accepting the rewrite of the measurement standards (Broadcasting 6 April
1987).
Of course, the networks shared the view that the old diary method of acquiring
demographic information was outdated. But they were also not very pleased with the
people meter. In voicing their protest, however, they could not straightforwardly
foreground self-interested arguments. Thus, they cast their position in technical terms,