The TV audience ratings of Sky Deutschland have been around 16% higher in subscriber households than reported by German TV ratings provider AGF in 2016.
The Frankfurt-based company compiling the official viewing figures for German TV broadcasters and the advertising industry, has informed its customers about the miscalculation today, Sky Deutschland reported in Munich. As a consequence, the measurement system has been considerably revised, according to the pay-TV operator.
Sky previously raised awareness about the contradiction that market research company GfK which measures the TV viewing figures for AGF, has been reporting decreasing ratings for the Sky offer despite growing subscriber numbers.
This lead to a comprehensive examination of possible reasons in AGF’s audience measurement system: The usage of an inadequate rule for the allocation of TV households to the market segment pay-TV was identified as the reason, according to Sky Deutschland.
To prevent further discrepancies, the application of the rule in the measurement system has now been adjusted.
“A deviation of 16% on average affirms once more that AGF’s measurement system has reached its limits,” Martin Michel, managing director of Sky Deutschland’s advertising sales subsidiary Sky Media, said in Munich. “The system is one of the most qualified worldwide, but it has to be made future-proof to meet the different challenges of a digital market.”
