Director of Research Department

Radio-Quebec, Montreal

I think the research being done now by both firms [BBM Bureau of Measurement and A. C. Nielsen] is quite good. There are methodological problems with the techniques used, but both firms are working on it to try to make it better and, according to our meetings with them, they are doing very well.

The only problem is the lack of money to do all the research we need to make the methodologies better. The fact also that there are two systems in operation makes the problem bigger because money goes to both systems.

I think there is competence, the know-how is quite high, and people know what should be done to improve the quality of the system, but money is lacking. The institutions that provide money are the broadcasters, basically, and they don’t have a lot of money.

Probably the best thing for Canadian research would be to have one system.

Qualitative data, if you want it, has to come from research done inside the institutions.

We invest a lot of money to get qualitative data. It doesn’t seem appropriate to ask bbm and Nielsen to develop this area of research, because many of the users are not interested in it, and you would still have the problem of spreading the money around.

Many of the regional broadcasters don’t have the resources or the interest in collecting this kind of data.