Television: Médiamétrie Changes Its Audience Measurement Methods
A revolution has been underway at Médiamétrie since January 1, 2024. The company that assesses the success of TV programs has decided to change its audience measurement methods. Its goal? To allow, starting from 2025, a direct comparison between traditional television and online platforms such as Netflix and YouTube. Explanation.
A wind of change at Médiamétrie.
The year 2024 is shaping up to be one of great change at Médiamétrie. This company, which was founded in 1985, has decided to transform television audience measurements to adapt to viewers' new watching habits.
The audience measurement system, or Médiamat, which assesses the success of television programs, will undergo its most significant transformation in 20 years starting January 1, 2024.
From now on, viewings on all screens within a household, including smartphones, tablets, and computers, will be counted in the Médiamat. Furthermore, the audience measurement will be extended to cover the entire French population, including households without a television, which accounts for about 10% of the French people.
A broader audience.
This upheaval of the Médiamat will allow the integration of television programs watched on the Internet into audience measurements, whether at home or on the go, live, delayed, or on replay.
Viewings on smartphones or tablets, including those outside the home, will be added to the audience figures achieved on traditional televisions. This development will, for the first time in 2025, take into account households that do not have a television and watch content on other types of screens.
This change will also allow for the measurement of online viewings, regardless of the timing of content consumption.
A possible comparison with streamers.
The ultimate goal of all these upheavals in audience measurement is simple: to be able, by 2025, to directly compare the audiences of traditional television and those of paid streaming platforms like Netflix or free ones like YouTube.
Médiamétrie believes that these changes are necessary to "better take into account the digitalization of practices." The French are increasingly consuming audiovisual content on the Internet, and advertisers have understood this well, as they are increasingly choosing digital over traditional channels.
Until now, online viewership was not measured accurately. The expanded Médiamat will fill this gap. This innovation may also gradually consign other audience measurements, such as the famous audience share (PdA), to oblivion.
New developments that are shaking up the French TV landscape.
With viewership determining advertising revenues for networks, this upheaval is not unanimously accepted in the small world of French broadcasting. Médiamétrie plans to publish its first measurements of time spent by the French on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, or YouTube in the third quarter of 2024, and some are awaiting the figures with trepidation.
By 2025, the leading audience measurement company is expected to unveil the distribution of consumption, that is, "the share of the pie" for each type of player in the sector. For the first time, Médiamétrie should be able to compare major audiovisual groups with subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms and free ad-supported video-on-demand (AVoD) platforms.
Today, in France, it is estimated that video-on-demand platforms account for just over 30% of screen time. With a base of about 70% of total audiences, linear television is holding strong in France.
Despite the undeniable growth of streaming platforms, television has not had its final say! As traditional channels increasingly make content available online, Médiamétrie's new measures should provide clearer insight into a sector that is constantly evolving.
