In the Streaming Era, TV Ratings Based on Household Panel Surveys... Trust and Fairness Under Scrutiny

OTT and New Media Rise in Turbulent Times
"Improvement Needed" in Outdated Viewership Rating Methods

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Amid the rapid changes in the media environment and viewing habits due to the rise of online video services (OTT) such as Netflix, the domestic paid broadcasting industry has called for a change in the outdated 'panel-based viewership survey' method. It is pointed out that Nielsen Research Korea, which accounts for 95% of the viewership survey market, is ignoring the industry's situation by refusing to change.

According to the industry on the 18th, the Korea IPTV Broadcasting Association held the 'Sustainable Media Ecosystem Conference (GeMeCon 2021)' the previous day and sought ways to create an independent viewership standard using the complete set-top box data of 18.25 million households (as of the second half of 2020) from the three IPTV companies (KT, SK Broadband, LG Uplus).

Professor Park Hyun-soo of Dankook University’s Department of Communication, who delivered the presentation, calculated the integrated viewership ratings of the three companies based on IPTV set-top box data. He stated, "The correlation between IPTV integrated viewership and Nielsen ratings is over 90%, with an adjustment coefficient of about 97%, and it can be used at the same level as the existing sample survey-based ratings."

Trends in the Number of Paid Broadcasting Subscribers in Korea

In this case, the issue where small and medium-sized broadcasting channel operators (PPs) were frustrated by '0% viewership' despite having viewing records is expected to be improved. Professor Park pointed out, "When the program viewership scale is below 0.5%, the reliability of the IPTV three-company integrated ratings will be higher."

The fact that Nielsen Research Korea abuses its market dominance and does not accept industry opinions has also fueled this discussion. A paid broadcasting industry official hinted, "There have been significant side effects and backlash as Nielsen operates as a monopoly, and the trend of addressable advertising, which requires sophisticated viewing pattern analysis, seems to support the new discussion."

Discussions on developing viewership indicators are more active overseas. The U.S. Ratings Verification Committee stopped certifying Nielsen headquarters' viewership survey results due to concerns that smooth viewership surveys were not being conducted because of COVID-19. U.S. NBCUniversal and Comscore are developing new viewership analysis standards including smart TVs.

Yoo Jung-ah, chairman of the IPTV Association, said, "Since this is a problem that individual companies cannot solve, the association plans to take the lead in creating new indicators," adding, "We intend to enhance completeness by cooperating with research specialists like Nielsen and continuously raise industry interest, not acting alone."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.