Nearly a decade after the Canadian Media Directors Council proposed its basic reach/frequency guidelines, the organization has released a sophisticated new software tool that will allow media planners and buyers to ‘comparison shop’ for the best television buys.

The Television Reach/Frequency System, launched last month, allows users to develop multi-week analyses of television advertising schedules, choosing from various dayparts and station lists, and selecting from a range of demographic qualifiers.

The system uses respondent level data from both BBM Bureau of Measurement and Nielsen Media Research.

Bruce Claassen, chairman of the Genesis Group of Companies in Toronto, steered the development of the new system as chair of the CMDC reach/frequency committee.

He says one of the primary differences between the marketplace in 1990, when the guidelines were released, and today are the number of specialty channels now on air. One of the major benefits of the new system, says Claassen, is that planners and buyers can ferret out schedules that offer cost-effective alternatives to more expensive, top-rated programming.

‘This allows buyers and planners to see what would happen with different weight levels or if the target group was defined in a certain way,’ he says. ‘It also allows [users to play out different] scenarios such as, if we bought sports programming for men 18 to 34, to what extent would we also reach women 18 to 34? Or, if we were going after a kids’ buy, how many mothers would we reach?’

Claassen adds, ‘There isn’t a problem with lack of information out there, but there is a problem with being able to manage that information in a fairly succinct fashion.’

The Television Reach/Frequency System runs on Web-based CMDC server technology. It is a standalone system and is not tied to any other product offerings, although it is optimizer compatible.