The World Is Not Enough

Why Cumulative Audiences Don't Add Up

Some months before or after any major international sporting event, the media reports on the latest cumulative audience TV data issued by the international federation of that sport. “Our event / sport is bigger than yours!” they cry, as if comparing bicycles in the playground. And not only that, but it’s an even bigger bicycle than last time! The casual and increasingly cynical fan will raise a quizzical eyebrow at the peculiarities of the sports marketing world where the viewing audience for an event can be depicted (as in the case of the 2002 FIFA World Cup), five times greater than the entire population of the globe, with or without a television. Indeed those of us within the industry who ought to know better have historically not questioned the origins or true value of this data and yet it has been used extensively as a means of measuring appeal and success, and selling TV contracts and sponsorship packages.

In the old days – in other words before interactivity and internet were perceived as the be-all and end-all – analysing coverage in this way suited sponsors of big events who were looking for global exposure generated from board advertising, via television, and who would measure the benefit of this on an advertising rate-card equivalent basis. With growing TV penetration around the world in the last two decades or so, TV audiences for major events generally increased on a year-by-year basis lending strength to the sales process and a semblance of validity to some extraordinary price hikes.

The cumulative audience approach has largely gone unchallenged, but within an industry that is seeking to become more accountable and less generalist, we detect a will for change. Fragmentation of the TV audience and greater sophistication towards its measurement has left major rights holders struggling to prove an increase in popularity and event exposure through traditional means. Some, but not all events now add in news and magazine coverage to TV coverage making like-for- like comparisons impossible. Indeed we would question whether this possibility were ever the case. How valid is it to compare, say, the Olympic Games and track and field events which might be transmitted for many hours at a time, to a live soccer match which is over in ninety minutes? How can “global” data be considered accurate when most developing markets can’t measure their population let alone the number of TV sets and potential audiences?

Indeed, in the new interactive multi-wired world, where brand equity, leverage and positioning are all, few sponsors are buying into global events solely for the media exposure derived from boards at events. Fewer still target a mass populace (the usual audience measurement) instead aiming for a specific sector of that population.

What is the way forward? There is no doubting the importance of reach as an indication of event popularity and success, but other media should to be included. We need an integrated cross platform approach that applies the meaning of “broadcast” in its broadest sense – from TV to web-cast to WAP and equivalent protocols to press and radio. There will be an increasing role for customised research as sponsors endeavour to determine the true reach of their message to a defined audience segment.

The IOC have recently taken strides to address this in the way their own TV audiences are researched and depicted. Conscious that previous data took no account of the length of time people watched a programme, the IOC has developed an approach they describe as Total Viewer Hours. This is determined by taking the duration of the programme and multiplying by the programme audience, and the sum of these hours defines the total number of hours watched by all viewers.

The IOC believe this is a more robust means of providing comparison between events whose broadcasts are of different durations. As Michael Payne of the IOC said recently “It is far more important to understand the true unduplicated audience number – the true global reach – and the average viewing hours per market – the popularity – than some global cumulative audience that actually tells you very little."

But in the future, will size always matter? Will bigger always be best? As we move towards a greater homogenisation between TV set and computer, and computer and telephone, arguably the greatest opportunity for TV rights sellers and sponsors alike will not be in the ability of events to reach a mass global audience but in the ability of those events to address the consumer as an individual. Perhaps the need lies less in the development of global macro research tools but more in effective micro measurement, that determines the power of major events to effect individual behavioural consumer change.

Sally Hancock
Chief Executive
Redmandarin