Audience measurement in Nigeria must evolve with changes in the industry
By Zion Rufus
Concerned stakeholders in the marketing communications industry have stressed the need for evolution in the process of audience measurement in Nigeria. For advertisers, broadcasters, and publishers, audience measurement plays a vital role in providing them with the needed information on the viewing patterns of customers, which then help the advertisers to make more informed decisions on where to place advertisements to reach the correct target audience at the lowest cost. Hence the need to stay updated on the changes in the viewing patterns of their audiences.
Validating the need for evolution in audience measurement, Brila FM Chairman, Dr. Larry Izamoje said: “If the sample population or size is wrong, your research is already defective. Audience measurement in Nigeria must evolve with changes in the industry. Calls for specialized stations ratings is something we think will eventually happen because even the Nigerian government through the Ministry of Information and Culture is unhappy with the kind of audience measurement we have in Nigeria. It is why the Honorable Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed seeing how audience measurement has fared and with nothing for new media and digitization beginning inaugurated a committee to look at audience measurement specifically and generally.”
Commenting on why Brila FM is currently not on the Media Planning Services (MPS) ranking of media organizations across Nigeria, Izemoje explained: “You don’t rank a specialized license with general licenses. We are not on MPS because we are a specialized station and they rank with a general template. When MPS started for example, there was no sports radio, no social media. Audience measurement has to specifically incorporate these. Those whose main reason for tuning to radio is sports must first be separated to have a good sample population before asking them which their favorite station for sports is.”
In an earlier submission, while affirming the need to overhaul the entire audience measurement system in Nigeria during the inauguration ceremony of the audience measurement Board, Honorable Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed pointed that the previous model hindered investment potentials and stifled the growth of the industry.
According to Mohammed, the existing model will never allow Nigeria’s Creative Industry to reach its full potential, adding that the absence of a scientific audience measurement regime has resulted in under-investment in the sector.
“It stunts the quality of the content that can be created and also limits the capacity of television platforms to invest in dynamic content that consumers will be attracted to,” he noted.
“As I have always said, the absence of a scientific audience measurement regime has resulted in under-investment in the sector, which is necessary to foster the growth of the industry. Today, the advertising community continues to rely on subjective factors when making decisions on the content they want, as opposed to how many viewers the content truly attracts.”
President of the Media Independents Association of Nigeria (MIPAN), Femi Adelusi on his part buttressed the need for the industry to move forward beyond where it currently sits while noting that there have been issues around audience measurement for over twenty years.
Adelusi said: “Although the Media Planning Services (MPS) has provided the industry with tools to do audience measurement, the industry has not been widely covered as this has elicited criticism from key stakeholders. The rate and pace at which things happen more frequently, the time frame and all others, we need a tool that provides media information at regular interval.”
It should be recalled that in January, in a strategic move to reposition the Nigerian broadcast and advertising industry, the Federal Government inaugurated a joint industry Audience Measurement Board which will be tasked with ensuring a timely and reliable audience measurement system for the industry.
Submitting that Nigeria’s broadcast advertising market previously plunged far below its weight due to the absence of a scientific audience measurement regime which resulted in under-investment in the sector, Lai Mohammed had noted that the immediate challenge is to bring the under-performing Nigeria TV and radio advertising market to what it should be, which is two or three times what it is now.
The newly inaugurated 15-member task force will be tasked with identifying best practice audience measurement system that will support the sustainable growth of the Nigerian Creative and Entertainment Industry; supervising the established framework for supporting the sustainability of the audience measurement system, independent of the Federal Government; and recommending a payment and disbursement framework among the key stakeholders in the industry, which includes the Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria (BON), Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) and Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN).
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