The media industry’s heady delight at the arrival of third-party Internet audience measurement in Canada has been tarnished with a hint of frustration as a controversy over measurement methodologies has cropped up.
In releasing its Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures for the month of January, Canoe, Quebecor’s Web portal site, has criticized fledgling Internet measurement service Media Metrix Canada for understating Canoe’s audience size.
Media Metrix Canada, a joint venture between BBM Bureau of Measurement division Comquest Research and New York-based Media Metrix, began offering its services to Canadian clients in November. When it released its first-ever Canadian Internet audience report last month, it indicated that the most popular Canadian-based Web site in December was Canoe competitor Sympatico.ca, with 2.4 million unique visitors.
Media Metrix’ numbers show that Canoe, meanwhile, had only 1.6 million unique visits (1.2 million from English Canada and 383,000 U.S.) to its site in December. According to Canoe’s ABC audit (which is based on an analysis of actual server visitor log files), however, the site had 4.2 million unique visitors in January – a figure that points to an obvious discrepancy in the measurement methodologies.
Rosanne Caron, vice-president of marketing and research for Canoe, says not only does Media Metrix exclude francophone and workplace usage from its measurement data, but its panel of 2,000 home computers is of insufficient size to measure Canoe’s overall performance.
‘In the eagerness to provide data, we’re being provided data based on a methodology that is understating the true audience,’ she says. ‘It’s not only detrimental to Canoe, it’s detrimental to the whole Internet industry.’
However, while he sympathizes with Canoe’s position, Brent Lowe-Bernie, president of Media Metrix Canada, says it’s unfair to slam the measurement service, since it’s still in its early building phase.
‘We totally understand where Canoe is coming from,’ says Lowe-Bernie, acknowledging that the lack of French Canadian, U.S. and workplace audience data creates a less-than-complete picture. ‘Clearly, we want to get those components of the panel up as fast as possible, but it is a staged process.’
Media Metrix’ target is to have a home panel of 5,000 participants by the end of April (the size of the panel is now up to 3,000), about one-quarter of that in Quebec. Reporting of francophone numbers is expected to begin in April with reports from the workplace component expected in June.
‘In all the countries we operate in, this is the methodology we use because we find it works best,’ Lowe-Bernie says. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean it keeps everyone happy.’
Other Canadian Web sites are also finding that Media Metrix is reporting somewhat lower numbers than they’d expected, but they seem willing to let the firm work out the bugs.
Marlise Nishikahama, director of marketing for Canada.com, for instance, says her firm’s visitor logs show it had 3.1 million unique visitors in January, compared to only one million reported by Media Metrix. All the same, she says, while it’s natural for any site to want to use whatever measurement system shows it in the best light, it’s just as important that an industry standard be developed that everyone can agree on.
Heidi Keuber, research manager of Sympatico, says it’s important to understand that Media Metrix is using the same measuring stick to gauge all the sites that it monitors.
‘Our log analysis also shows higher numbers than Media Metrix…However, it’s important to have an outside tracker look at us from a more objective viewpoint, and I think that’s what Media Metrix brings to the table.’
