In an effort to smooth the ruffled feathers of the Canadian advertising community, the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (bbm) has invited the Association of Canadian Advertisers (aca) to participate in a test run of its metered service.

The test, which will take place in Toronto in September and involve 50 households, will compare bbm’s picture-matching service (developed by Taylor Nelson AGB of London) to Nielsen Media Research Canada’s conventional meter service.

‘Any time we can cooperate is a plus,’ says Ron Bremner, vice-president of bbm’s tv division, adding that the advertising community is an important constituent for the company.

The Association, which contributed $500,000 to a joint effort between bbm and Nielsen that was supposed to rationalize Canada’s tv measurement service, was rightly peeved when bbm backed out of the four-year agreement after having been involved for only 18 months.

Bremner says that the agreement had a couple of exits, one of which was September 1997 (six months’ notice was a term of the agreement). ‘We probably could have kept the agreement for another year,’ he says. ‘But we thought that wasn’t playing fair.’

bbm claims that its service will outperform Nielsen’s because, according to Bremner, picture-matching will work on digital services ­ something Nielsen’s current meter won’t be able to do. If Nielsen decides to launch its own digital service meter, it will translate into higher costs, according to Bremner.

For now, bbm is preparing for the parallel trial with a test run in Vancouver.

He is convinced that this fall’s trial will be important in the long run. ‘I think that there’s only room for one meter system in Canada,’ he says. ‘It’s never been our wish to be an alternative.’