The Manila Times

Are advertiser­s satisfied with the dubious TV ratings system?

- YEN MAKABENTA yenmakaben­ta@yahoo.com

and Marco Rubio, exchanged insulting words.

Trump attacked the Florida senator via Twitter: “Little Marco Rubio is just another Washington D.C. politician that is all talk and no action.”

Rubio replied in kind: “Trump is always calling me Little Marco. And I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s like 6’2”, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the

When Trillanes joined Marco Rubio in Washington for a cabal, little did he know that he was linking with a kindred soul.

When Trump touches down in Manila next week to attend the Asean and East Asia summits, Filipino media will doubtless bring up the “little narco” comment with him and his media staff.

The “little narco” quip, says one report in the Bulletin, was made when Trump was asked by an embedded reporter on Air Force One about Senator Trillanes’ meeting with Senator Rubio.

with Trump going home from an - dent Trump considered Trillanes a virtual nobody.

Said Trump: “Senator who? Like I said senator who? The li’l narco who met Marco? How did he get a visa? Isn’t he wanted, doesn’t he have an arrest warrant or something?”

Trillanes must console himself with the thought that the brand, which will now tail him everywhere he goes, was stamped on him by a US president.

Are TV ratings fake?

Mainstream media, both broadcast chance of surviving the communicat­ions revolution and the onslaughts of online media, if they will only return to the fount of their service to society: reporting the truth of events and developmen­ts, and transparen­cy about their own operations.

The point was impressed on me during a conversati­on with a foreign corporate executive, who asked me 1) why our top TV networks present different and contrastin­g TV ratings regarding their audience share; and2) why there is still no accredited Audit Bureau of Circulatio­n to authentica­te the circulatio­ns of local newspapers.

His point is unavoidabl­e. The stakes are very high, running into billions of pesos, particular­ly in advertisin­g revenues for broadcast media, which is the most dominant value in terms of media’s prestige as a social institutio­n is incalculab­le, because media, especially print, has constituti­onal protection.

Newspapers can more easily roll with the problem, because their revenue share is modest compared to the broadcast networks. Their bigger problem is the pervasive erosion of and clients to the Internet.

This week, the nation was treated to the annual ritual of both ABSCBN and GMA-TV simultaneo­usly boasting that they have respective­ly won the ratings war against each other, and over the smaller TV networks in the country.

Is it comprehens­ible for each of them to be on top of the totem pole, and claim bragging rights?

What special manipulati­on do their favorite market researcher­s perform so each can claim supremacy?

The question is in order because the market researcher­s, Kantar Media and AGB Nielsen, have not wavered one bit from their predestine­d

ABS- CBN triumphant

said that it posted an average national audience share of 46 percent in October, up 23 percent compared with rival GMA Network Inc. with 33 percent, according to data from Kantar Media.

ABS-CBN took the lead in all territorie­s, including Mega Manila where it scored an average audience share of 36 percent against GMA’s 34 percent, and in Metro Manila with 41 percent against GMA’s 27 percent.

with 43 percent compared with GMA’s 34 percent, in Total Visayas with 53 percent against GMA’s 28 percent and in Total Mindanao with 50 percent against GMA’s 33 percent.

ABS- CBN also led other networks across all time blocks in October, including the morning block, where it scored an average audience share of 39 percent against GMA’s 32 percent.

GMA’s victory

GMA, for its part, reported that it maintained its supremacy in the nationwide television ratings competitio­n in October based on data from Nielsen Phils. TV audience measuremen­t.

According to GMA, its ratings in the National Urban Television Audience Measuremen­t (NUTAM) posted an average total day people audience share of 41.7 percent from October 1 to 28, higher compared with ABSCBN’s 38.1 percent.

The network also registered winning numbers across all day parts in NUTAM. In the morning block, GMA registered a 38.5 percent people audience share versus ABSCBN’s 35.9 percent.

In the afternoon line-up, GMA dominated its time block with 45.4 percent as against ABS-CBN’s 37.5 percent. Subsequent­ly, the evening block was also ruled by GMA with 40.2 percent versus the competitio­n’s 39.4 percent

The market researcher­s

These perplexing ratings reports prompted me to look up the credential­s of the market researcher­s who did the survey research.

Kantar Media Research, which did the survey favoring ABS-CBN, is a - - dia. Kantar Media is responsibl­e for audience measuremen­t of television ratings for the entire Philippine­s.

As of 2017, Kantar Media uses urban and rural households, with a respondent base of 10,000 individual­s that represent 100 percent of the total Philippine TV viewing population.

The panel reports on seven sectors, namely National Capital Region,

AGB Nielsen Media Research, or AGB Nielsen, is a market research in broadcast media. AGB Nielsen conducts audience measurem ent of television ratings for certain areas in the Philippine­s, most notably in urban areas.

As of 2013, AGB Nielsen uses based solely in urban areas that represent 57 percent of the total Philippine TV viewing population.

In October 2006, AGB Nielsen national television audience measuremen­t panel called the “Nationwide Urban Television Audience Measuremen­t ( NUTAM)” that covered 95 percent of urban areas in the country.

On December 20, 2007, ABS-CBN against AGB Nielsen after ABS-CBN discovered alleged tampering in the ratings in Bacolod. The next day, ABS- CBN reported through their AM station DZMM that AGB Nielsen pointed to GMA Network as the one behind the manipulati­on of ratings in Bacolod. On January 3, suit against ABS-CBN and some of its employees. On January 7, 2008, court (RTC) junked ABS-CBN’s case against AGB Nielsen saying it was

Why isn’t there one TV ratings system in the country that regularly and methodical­ly measure the audience Why are the two measures providing persistent­ly contrastin­g results.

Why is it that in the US we are programs and shows and networks outperform one another, even with particular audience segments?

Surely, this is not the fault of Filipino audiences?

The simple answer is that the ratings are being produced by the market researcher­s on demand by the TV networks. There is plenty of money in this transactio­nal arrangemen­t.

Advertiser­s’ satisfacti­on ratings

worthwhile satisfacti­on survey that the Social Weather Stations should be commission­ed to conduct as a service to the Filipino public and the business community.

SWS should survey the legions of TV advertiser­s, big and small, that advertise at great cost on the leading broadcast networks, ABS-CBN and GMA-TV. It should ask companies system that each network parades as proof that it is on top.

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