TV ratings are always significant to gauge which programs are more
popular for broadcasting companies, advertising companies, and also
fans. Currently for the Thursday-Friday slight of dramas “Greatest Love” and “City Hunter”
are competing for number one in viewers for that time slot. A user had
asked me why South Korea has two different ratings and I wrote this
short piece in hopes of giving an answer.
Originally TV ratings were dominated by one company called Media
Service Korea. In 1999, TNS Media Korea began to publically provide TV
rating information that improved on several problems that had occurred
because of Media Service Korea’s dominance.
Then MSK was acquired by AC Nielsen and the competition between the
two companies began. As of 2005, AC Nielson and AGB had merged to create
AGB Nielson research.
TNS Media Korea on the other hand changed their name to TNmS in 2010.
Currently AGB Nielson has a total of 2050 households that are being
researched for TV ratings. The breakdown is the following: Seoul 550,
Busan 250, Daegu 200, Kwang Ju 160, Dae Jun 160 and other smaller cities
290.
TNmS is also similar in number of households as they have 2000 households spread out around Korea.
Both companies use a research tool called People Meter that is
attached to a Receptor. Any person can be included in the research, but
families that have a member involved in the broadcasting business in
some way are excluded.
The two companies also had their share of legal battles. AGB Nielson
accused TNmS of having rigged some of the research information. The
first court accepted the accusations in September 17h of 2009 but TNmS
have appealed.
Now the question is, what makes the ratings have 2~3% differences
between the two research companies? For some, they believe that the
reason for this difference is that TNmS visits the households and
includes “guests” that are watching TV into their studies thus
increasing the percentage of certain TV Show, while AGB Nielson does
not. However, the “real” reason for this difference has yet to be
determined. It is also a source of controversy because these percentage
differences would mean a lot for advertising companies or broadcasting
companies.
Now this is my own opinion but, consider these facts. If TNmS and AGB
Nielson had the same households in their research we would probably see
identical numbers. Otherwise, you might see few percentage differences
like we do now. A really simple explanation, I know, but it makes sense
to me :P. Also, for any type of research you always leave open that
“margin of error,” and also outliers.
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