The game of chicken being waged in the Vancouver market by two people meter companies is unlikely to be resolved until one of the competitors backs down or an industry group steps forward to declare a winner.
Going head-to-head are Nielsen Media Research, which has had its code-injection/video-matching system up and running since the beginning of 1998, and BBM Bureau of Measurement, which officially launched its Taylor Nelson AGB picture-matching system in September of last year. Both companies have meters in 500 Vancouver homes.
Right now, most of the cost is being covered by local broadcasters. Five of the six Vancouver broadcasters subscribe to bbm data while three subscribe to Nielsen.
Agency participation is also split, with some shops subscribing to both sets of data.
Rick Sanderson, media director at Bryant Fulton & Shee in Vancouver and chair of the Vancouver Media Directors Council, says having two competing systems in the market over the long term is simply not viable.
‘I think the majority [of advertising agencies] will drift one way or the other and whichever way they go will be the one that survives,’ says Sanderson.
‘If they elect to go with bbm, Nielsen has very deep pockets and they could keep a presence here for much longer. However, if the market decides to go with Nielsen, I don’t think bbm can afford to sustain itself without breaking even for as long.’
Sanderson says the data coming from both systems is pretty consistent, which indicates to him that electronic metering is the way to go.
Much of the media buying in the Vancouver market is handled through Toronto agencies such as The Media Edge, the Young & Rubicam media division headed by Bruce Grondin.
Grondin says Canada can’t afford two audience measurement systems in every market.
He says having two competing people meter systems causes additional work for the agencies and it’s disruptive to the marketplace because of the uncertainty it creates with respect to which system will be adopted.
The final decision likely will not rest with local broadcasters or agencies but rather with their parent companies, Grondin says, primarily because most buying in Canada is now in the hands of newly formed, multinational, media buying goliaths.
That bodes well for Nielsen, he says, because Nielsen is the measurement service that has been selected by the big u.s. broadcasters.
The Vancouver media directors are still wrestling with the changeover from paper diaries to electronic meter ratings and data, a transition similar to that which occurred in the Toronto market with its Nielsen meter rollout in 1995. Electronic data tends to indicate lower audience numbers for news and other live programming and higher numbers for fringe-time programming than paper diaries.
Early this year, likely in February, the vmdc is going to explain to b.c. advertisers what they have learned about viewership as a result of having access to metered measurement, and what it means to them as advertisers.
