Why is there music in news bulletins or a ‘breaking news’ ticker almost every minute on news channels? Ask a television executive and the answer will invariably be “because it sells”. An important key to understanding content production practices on news channels then is to understand how the money is made.

In an industry where more than 80 channels are vying for a slice of the Rs30billion advertising spend pie, their only source of revenue, survival depends on big numbers. The more eyeballs there are for ads, the more sustainable a channel operation is. For advertisers and media buyers, determining which programme gets the best ratings in a given time slot critically influences their buying decisions.

But where do these ratings come from?

Medialogic and the mechanics of data collection Born out of the mushrooming of television channels of the early 2000s was Medialogic, a company that promised to bring state-of-the-art television audience measurement (TAM) techniques and practices to Pakistan.

Set up in 2007, Medialogic replaced the Gallup Diary that had been in operation since the 80s. The need for a new TAM regime was borne of the desire for more detailed, more accurate, and timelier data on program popularity and audience demographics — a requirement that the Gallup Diary was unable to fulfil.

With the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) at the centre of instituting a new audience measurement regime, this was very much a change that was driven by advertisers. But ever since its inception, Medialogic data has become the industry currency.

Key to Medialogic’s new system were telecontrol meters: some 500 meters were initially installed in three cities — Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad — as per the terms of the bid that Medialogic had won. The meter box is connected to the television tuner, and measures which frequency a television is tuning into. Data is picked from the meter every 30 seconds, saved, and transmitted to the Medialogic office in Lahore via phone line.

Unlike the Diary, Medialogic provides overnight ratings of who (gender, age, income, occupation, education) is watching what, when and for how long. At the beginning of every television-viewing session, individuals in the household using the meter have to log in and identify themselves. The meter thus records data for each individual household member on how long they watched a particular channel at a given time.

Once data is beamed back to Lahore, a quality check is run on all information received. This typically includes checking for duplication, or abnormally long television-viewing sessions (in instances when a family left the television on and forgot about it, for example). The vetted data is then compiled into consumable form and shared with clients after 48 hours. Medialogic make their money by charging varying rates to different kinds of consumers: 0.5pc of broadcasters’ revenue and 1pc of spend by advertisers.

The reality of samplingMedialogic data is merely representative: its outcomes depend on 700 meters installed in ten cities: Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Lahore, Islamabad/ Rawalpindi and Peshawar. Quetta is noticeable by its absence. Karachi takes the lion’s share of the meters, and hence, tends to shape sampling-based decisions more than other cities.

Given Pakistan’s population, industry insiders believe there should be at least 2,000-2,200 meters across the country, thereby increasing both the size and the representation of television audiences. Salman Danish, CEO of Medialogic, agrees that their sample size is small. “We do not claim to measure total viewership in Pakistan, not even total urban viewership,” Danish says. He points to the industry’s reluctance to pay for such data as a hindrance

“The industry may want more data but it is not willing to pay for it. This is not an art, but a science. The sample size depends on how deep you want to measure the population, it depends on what the terms of reference are for the required measurement,” he argues.

Media veterans warn of making content-based decisions purely on ratings alone. “Ratings are a trend indicator rather than an accurate measurement of audience,” contends Faisal Sherjan, strategy and planning director at Geo. “Ratings are essentially a tool to negotiate price,” he says, adding that they can only truly measure audience’s choice if factors such as power loadshedding, limited distribution and cable operators maintaining order of channels are also accounted for.

Content creation versus audience demand:

who rules the roost?

In essence, programming seems to have devolved into a game of “follow the (ratings) leader”; it doesn’t matter if the leader is sleazy or sensationalist, as long as it sells.

“If everyone delivers to the lowest common denominator then where do you raise the bar? How do you improve?” asks Afia Salam, journalism and advertising veteran, who was also a researcher for the Media Commission that reported to the Supreme Court on the influence of money over media content. “Are you going to be leading the debate on good content or are you going to be led, this is what the media has to decide.”

Danish agrees: “Ratings should not matter for news content,” he says.

Indeed, it is agreed universally that news content must be produced with consideration to journalistic ethics and pure numbers should not be the only criteria. In Pakistan, ratings are often used as an excuse to cover poor editorial judgement and policies.

Tricks of the tradeApart from inelastic ratings and small sample sizes, there are other concerns as well. Medialogic’s monopoly, ranking of small channels changing uncharacteristically, and the two-day delay in the release of Medialogic’s data all come up repeatedly in conversations with those on the fringes of the money pie.

Regional language channels, for example, enjoy high viewership, but get left out as their popularity doesn’t register in the overall rating because of the panel spread.

Of course, there also exists the dynamic of the order of channels on cable. The current system depends on cable operators to not change the order in which the channels are organised (per the allotted frequency). As cable operators vary the order routinely — sometimes intentionally, the system has to manually update changes in frequency, which can result in erroneous data.

There have also been reports of broadcasters influencing cable operators and reportedly one even bought out a cable network in an area with considerable number of meters installed. Danish maintains that Medialogic has enough quality checks in place to identify misuse of the system and any changes in patterns are flagged immediately. Admitting to instances of “panel interference,” Danish says that complaints were lodged with the PBA, which initiated action against the concerned broadcasters.

Going forwardIn the absence of regulation or law enforcement around broadcast and privacy, market forces are calling the shots, policed very mildly by individual decision makers. But there is consensus going forward: all stakeholders agree that the Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority needs to do its job of enforcing existing regulations.

There are also suggestions to introduce Direct-To-Home (DTH) platforms, to get cable networks to switch-over to digital, and to have consumers directly paying broadcasters, thereby reducing the power of advertisers over content.

“India is abandoning the rating system; they are moving on to more accurate information coming from their DTH platforms,” says Sherjan, highlighting the need for Pakistani media industry to go digital and be open to digital innovation in media audience measurement.

Under the Geneva 2006 (GE-06) Agreement, explains Sherjan, countries around the world have to switch-off analogue systems and go digital by June 2015. Sherjan believes this will “bring sanity to the industry” as digital data will arm producers with more critical insights.

Till then, the game of ratings will be a game of thrones that is blighted by short-term interests.