Q.11 There are reports that the STB can function as a Peoplemeter. Since data would then be gathered from more homes (all homes with STBs), wouldn’t the data be more robust and representative than the TAM data?

There have been many experiments the world over on using the STB as an audience measurement device. The results however show that the measurement can at best be rough in nature due to several reasons:

1) Home vs Individual viewership
The STB can record viewership only at the home level. In other words, it cannot tell you how many people are there in front of the television or who they are. All it can tell you is that the STB is ‘ON’ from and to, a certain time which leads us to the next problem.

2) Is the TV ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’?
As mentioned in the above point, the STB data tells you how much time the STB was ‘ON’ – it however does not tell you whether the TV itself was ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’. So a home (as many who have had set top tuner box in their homes would testify) could put off the TV set after viewing but the set top box still remains ‘ON’. This means that the TV set would be ‘OFF’ but the set top box is still ‘ON’ and would record it as a viewing in progress even while the TV set is in a ‘OFF’ state!

3) Respondent privacy
In all surveys undertaken by professional market researchers, the privacy of the respondent is of paramount importance. It is unfortunate that while there have been many comments in the press about measuring audiences through STBs, no single stakeholder in common knowledge has mentioned the privacy aspect. So for instance, there would be many homes who do not wish their viewing to be captured. It is important to keep this in mind when the potential number of data providing STB homes is mentioned.

4) Demographics
It is still unclear how the home demographics would be collected, how frequently they would be updated and more importantly how it would be merged with the home viewing data in the case of STB data.

5) Sophistication
There are a range of statistical rules, computational procedures and validation processes that the TAM data passes through to reach the user. For instance, one of the most important procedures is that of weighting where the TAM panel data is projected onto the universe to reflect what the universe – your select TG – watches. These are sophisticated processes and require domain expertise. Researchers the world over spend a huge amount of time and money developing practices based on sound statistical theory. One does not know how an STB-based data provider will conduct such procedures. This especially since procedures such as weighting requires knowledge of a known universe by demographics. This in fact, leads us to the next point…

6) The Holistic picture
Even if all the above points are ignored with the city split between operators, how can any one STB-based data source reflect the viewership of the market as a whole? This will be more so with a zonal roll-out in each of the 3 cities.

7) What is the universe?
Since homes that choose to watch only FTA channels do not need an STB, all data that is gathered forms only a partial part of the entire C&S universe giving a skewed picture.