SKO, the Dutch organisation for viewing figures, plans to integrate onine viewing figures with those of linear viewing by March 2011, said MD Bart de Vos.
To this end, the Virtual Metre. developed by the Common Technology Center (CTC) will be used. SKO has contracted measurement out to Intomart GfK and Nielsen Media for the period 2011 – 2015.
“By launching this project we take a major step in preparing for the future measurement of audience behaviour,” according to De Vos. “Together with our British colleagues we run it in the forefront of international development of viewing research. If the project is successful we will expand the project in the coming years.”
The so-called Virtual Metre was developed by CTC in response to the demand for single source measurement of audience behaviour in viewing research. It offers a technique that measures viewing of television programmes on computers and includes a software solution that also tells who’s been watching.
By comming online viewing with the regular measurement of audience behaviora better model can be established for the total viewing in households. Given the widespread penetration of broadband Internet in The Netherlands, this is a necessity for SKO.
SKO also announced it will integrate the Metricline/Civolution audio watermarking in its Taris 500 people metres in addition to the fingerprinting technique it uses. By combining two different codes, better measurement is guaranteed for identifying the right channel.
