These are
the audiences of
the Italian television

Brief manual for correct reading

Every morning, just before 10am, Auditel releases – for everyone – the sample audience data of about 400 national and local TV channels. The data reported are as follows:  1. Average Rating. The Average Minute Rating shows the average number of viewers of a programme. It’s the ratio between the sum of viewers in each of the minutes of a period of time and the duration –in minutes – of that period. 2. Share. Share (SH) is a percentage showing the ratio between the viewers of a TV channel and the total viewers watching any programme on any channel. It’s the most used datum by media reporting on TV audience. 3. Penetration. Penetration (PE) is a percentage showing the ratio between the viewers of a category and the corresponding sample universe. For example, how many 15-year-olds watch a programme out of the total number of 15-year-olds of the Auditel SuperPanel™. 4. Net Contacts.

Net Contacts (NC) shows the number of viewers who watched a specific programme for at least one minute, counted only once. This datum is also technically called Coverage. 5. Minutes Viewed (MV). Minutes Viewed (MV) shows the average number of minutes watched by viewers for each programme. It’s equal to the programme average rating multiplied by its duration and divided by net contacts. 6. Loyalty . The Loyalty (LO) index is a percentage showing the ratio between the average number of minutes watched by viewers of a specific programme and the programme duration.  In addition, there is a monthly release on national channels which covers: 1. Live audience + VOSDAL audience (Viewed On Same Day As Live, i.e. pre-recorded, paused or ‘rewound’ content viewed on the same day as broadcasting); 2. consolidated audience up to the 4^th day following the broadcasting day (the standard for the advertising market); 3. consolidated audience up to the 7^th  day following the broadcasting day (the standard for editorial analyses). As far as the census data are concerned, Auditel submits them only to the software houses every day at 6pm, and publishes them with a weekly report every Tuesday at 10am. The census data reported are: 1. Average Minute Rating-Device. The Average Minute Rating-Device (AMR-D) shows the audience per average digital minute. It’s basically identical to traditional TV AMR, but it currently quantifies the number of devices in the average minute instead of the number of viewers in the average minute. 2. Legitimate Stream (LS). Legitimate Stream (LS) measures the volume of streams of a linear (live) or on-demand (VOD) content played and viewed for at least 300 milliseconds (the technical threshold ensuring the stream was actually started) on each device. 3. Total Time Spent (TTS). Total Time Spent (TTS) is the sum of all the seconds for which each device viewed editorial or advertising content from a single channel. It is calculated per week, time slot, device type and viewing mode. 4. Average Stream Duration. Digital device audience data and individual audience data cannot be added together. The Average Stream Duration (ASD) measures the average viewing time of a Legitimate Stream. It’s obtained dividing TTS by the number of LSs. Please note that reading census data is more complex than reading traditional ones. AMR-D is the closest metric to the metric of traditional TV, though at present it can only be considered side by side and not added to it (as it measures devices and not individuals). Also note that the WEB is not TV. There is no “internet total”. So, it is not possible to calculate the “share” as we can do with the sample measurement. What’s more, the web doesn’t have a 100% (share) as well as it doesn’t have a “day after”. Since Video On-Demand represents the highest volumes, longer distances must be taken into account if we are to quantify the overall performance of a channel, a programme or an advert correctly. Of course, digital data are bound to transform rapidly due to both perimeter size (new apps that will soon be added) and structural factors (progressive replacement of traditional TV sets with Smart TVs and coverage of access technology). In the TV Audience section of this website you can read the latest data released, offering a general overview of the Italian TV expressed in numbers. For national channels, the sample data refer to the target of individuals and the month’s average day per standard daily time slots, while the census data refer to the devices measured. There are also sample data on the total audience of the month’s average day for each platform. Whilst for local channels, the sample data collected region by region and channel by channel refer to the Net Contacts of the month’s average day (i.e. the number of viewers who watched the channel for at least one minute on the month’s average day).

How to get
the complete
Auditel data set

The complete Auditel data set is available for everyone upon payment and upon request. Fees vary according to the type of user, its business size and the amount of information provided. In order to define distribution criteria and costs, Auditel separates two types of users: measured TV broadcasters and other professional users.

End users can access Auditel data through the software houses and/or their applications. Software houses are companies specialized in creating processing systems, managing software libraries and/or providing other services required by their users. Thus, the software houses provide end users with the Auditel data (fully held by Auditel) through their softwares. They enter into a licence contract for using the Auditel data and pay Auditel a fixed fee; similarly, end users have to sign a Licence to Use contract with Auditel and pay a fee set by Auditel price list. This fee does not include the licence to use the classification by lifestyle, whose additional fee must be paid to the company GFK in case of interest.

The software houses shall notify Auditel of any new clients requiring access to the Auditel data, to ensure that any subject making use of them enters into a regular contract and pays the relevant fee. At the same time, the end user has the possibility to use any software house without paying any additional cost for accessing the data. Any subject interested in using our data can consult our current Price List to estimate fees, to identify the type of user they belong to and the corresponding quantitative parameter (billing, turnover) reflecting their business size. For the Media Centres section, see below:

ADVERTISING AGENCIES – MEDIA CENTRES
(global billing base)

In order for smaller subjects to access information, Auditel also allows “discreet” or temporary access, or access through one or more processing patterns carried out by the software house directly (thus with no access to the entire data bank).
The current fees are valid through 31^st December 2019.
We are presently developing an overall revision of our pricing system for the clients accessing and using the TV audience data.
The main guidelines for this revision are:

• Adjusting the segmentation of Users to better represent the deeply changed market structure.
• Fine-tuning the quantitative parameters for better and more linear definition of fees within a category of Users as well as more balanced correlation between Users of different categories according to the nature of their access to the Auditel data (commercial, editorial, survey, etc.).
• Lowering the minimum fee for accessing information in order to further facilitate access by smaller Users.

How TV channels
can request
to be measured

Every broadcaster can become part of our measurement system. The Auditel system ensures maximum inclusivity to any subject. The choice may be subject to a trial period (when data are produced but not published) at the end of which it’s possible to decide whether to sign a one-year contract or not. How much does being measured by Auditel cost? It depends: prices vary according to the type of channel (national or local) and its ‘weight’. For national TV channels, once the total annual cost of the survey has been defined, the amount is split between the broadcasters authorising publication according to their annual Share. The amount is made proportional to the total audience of the measured broadcasters, with a guaranteed minimum of € 34,800 per contract. All national TV channels are offered the possibility (upon request) to enter a trial period on their audience results obtaining confidential data which are not published. The trial period has a monthly fee of € 3,900 for the daily datum and the monthly average datum. As for local TV channels, the annual cost (or monthly in case of new subscriptions) varies according to the number of net contacts on the month’s average day with three levels of minimum cost and a maximum one: 1. € 5,000 up to 100,000 contacts; 2. with over 100,000 contacts, € 12 every thousand contacts; 3. an additional annual fee of € 5,100 applies to broadcasters requesting the publication of daily elemental data. Also local TV channels can (upon request) enter a trial period on their audience results obtaining confidential data which are not published. The trial period has a monthly fee of € 2,200 for the first month and € 780,00 for the next months, for the monthly average datum (average Monday, average Tuesday, etc.).