Oracle Airtime Sales (OATS) expects an 11% growth in the total number of DStv households on the TAMS (TV viewing measurement) panel (from 1.630 million to 2.104 million). Homes that subscribe to DStv’s Compact will increase from 274,000 to 584,000 – a 113% growth and they will now make up 27% of the DStv homes (up from 17%).
The South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) TAMS council implemented the AMPS 2009a universes to the TAMS panel on 1 January 2010. The new universes are based on the January to June 2009 AMPS fieldwork period and will once again reflect the tremendous growth in the number of DStv subscribers, particularly Compact households.
According to Oracle, the black households with DStv subscriptions increase from 40% to 46.5% with the new update. This reflects the significant penetration DStv has gained amongst middle-income households.
As these changes only consist of universe adjustments and none of the RIM weighting changes that previous universe adjustment involved, there has been no dual release period to allow broadcasters to assess the impact at a channel and micro level.
However, the same adjustments to household and individual weights that were implemented in AMPS will now be applied to the TAMS panel. As a result, the overall number of television (peoplemeter) households increases by 11% (from 8.675 million to 9.655 million), while the television adult population grows by 4% (from 24.102 million to 25.074 million). The changes in terms of total viewing and the number of Pay households reflected in AMPS 09a are in line with expectations and market realities for Pay television.
OATS explains that these changes will have an impact on DStv-buying target markets in particular. “But we expect very little impact on the M-Net audiences as a result of the universes,’ says director of strategy and research, Brenda Wortley. “The usual fluctuations due to programme changes and shifts in audience share will be the main drivers for M-Net.’
On the DStv front, all channels show increases in viewership with an average of 21%. Obviously the channels that do well on the Compact platform will show above-average gains. “However, as the industry traditionally buys DStv audiences based on a DStv filtered target audience, this means that they only ever look at the percentage of reach amongst DStv homes regardless of how many homes there are. They therefore do not see this growth reflected in the ratings data. In fact, when one looks at AR performance, some channels will show a decline.’
“It’s recommended that the industry continues to plan DStv using break ratings and applying a 10% downweight to ratings,’ says Wortley. “Ratings will still vary at spot-by-spot, so overall campaign performance should be used to judge performance. As previously recommended, the most recent six-week source period should be used and adjustments made for programme changes.’
The substantial growth in the DStv base was anticipated by OATS and was taken into account for the January 2010 rates setting process explains Wortley. “We have taken moderate increases in our loose spot and package rate in response to the growth in both the audience base as well as advertising demand.’
The next universe update based on July-December 09 AMPS is likely to be implemented in June or July. OATS anticipates the same types of trends to continue.
