Every day, Auditel measures the editorial and advertising performance
7 days a week, 24 hours, minute by minute
Since 1984, Auditel has performed an important and delicate task: measuring and releasing the data depicting the entire digital, satellite, live and on-demand TV offer on all platforms and devices, 24 hours a day, minute by minute. A necessary (and monitored) task as this data – at the core of advertising analyses and planning – expresses a currency, that is the unit of measurement used by all market players to assess return on investment (in both editorial and advertising terms). This is why the whole Auditel measurement process is trackable. Its algorithms and processing protocols are accessible and held in escrow. At any time, third-party auditors can reproduce the data. Today, Auditel measures the audience data of both traditional TV and TV beyond TV sets, i.e. viewed on digital devices at home or elsewhere. A complex task made possible by painstaking social research and sophisticated technological architecture. As you can read below.
Traditional TV
In little more than a decade, following an exceptional fragmentation process and thanks to remarkable technological effort, Auditel has gone from monitoring 6-7 big national general TV channels to measuring 440 channels, collecting and releasing TV audience data on each of them 24 hours a day and minute by minute using a sample survey system. In particular, Auditel monitors linear TV broadcast through both DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) and DST (Digital Satellite Television), also measuring time-shifted viewing up to 7 days, as well as OTT (Over-The-Top Television), VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), PVR (Personal Video Recorder), and MySky. Finally, we also measure game consoles and other TV-connectable devices which can be used to watch TV channels.
TV beyond the TV set
Technological innovation has multiplied platforms and generated other spaces – different from the home TV set – where people can view digitized TV content also on mobile devices, forcing data researchers to take into consideration a multi-service, over-the-air and over-the-web environment. Today, Auditel is able to measure TV contents and ads on Smart TVs, PCs, Smartphones, Tablets and Game Consoles obtaining information through a census system, a system based on the total numbers of viewings detected directly, instead of sample-based estimates. The new census system (the Auditel solution) is an integration of the sample system, not a replacement to it. This choice makes it possible to carry out the first cross-media collection of TV audience data from different platforms and devices, net of any duplications.
We measure TV
on the three
broadcasting technologies
Digital
Terrestrial
Television (DTT)
250 TV channels use DTT in Italy. The technology was implemented between 2008 and 2012, when the analogue signal was switched off.
Digital
Satellite
Television (DST)
Active in Italy since 1996. Today, 130 pay and free-to-air TV channels use DST and can be watched with a set-top-box.
Internet
Protocol
TV (IP)
Web TV or IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) has been active in Italy since 2001. Many TV publishers use live, on-demand, free, and pay IPTV.
From TV sets to PCs,
we measure viewings
on six different devices
TV sets
There are 43 million TV sets in Italy. According to the Auditel-Censis Report, 97% of households own at least one, 38% two, 17.3% three or more.
Smart TVs
Among the households owning at least one TV set, 19.3% owns a Smart TV connected to the web (13.6%) or a TV connected to the web through an external device (10.4%).
Computers
There are 5.7 million desktops and 14 million laptops in Italy. 22.1% of households own at least one desktop, while 48.1% own at least one laptop: all of them can access web TV.
Tablets
24.4% of Italian households own a Tablet: 23.1% own one, 3.3% own at least two. Tablets are mainly used by people aged 35-64 (34.9%) and millennials (30.3%).
Smartphones
At least 95% of Italian households own a mobile phone, certainly the most common device. Smartphones are frequently used to watch TV content, especially short clips.
Game Consoles
11% of TV households owns a Game Console. When connected to the TV and to the web, Game Consoles function as set-top-boxes for watching TV channels.
One programme, three viewing times
All TV contents can be viewed live, i.e. at the same time as broadcasting, or delayed. Since 1st May 2011, Auditel has measured the audience of programmes and adverts viewed at a different time from the actual broadcasting, using two main criteria. First: Viewing On Same Day As Live (VOSDAL), when the delayed viewing takes place on the same day as broadcasting. Second: Time-Shifted Viewing (TSV), when the delayed viewing takes place from one to up to x days after broadcasting. Two limits are associated with Time-Shifted Viewing in Italy: Time-Shifted Viewing (TSV) +4 days; Time-Shifted Viewing (TSV) +7 days. TSV up to +4 days is the data used for advertising analysis, but +7 days is also available for editorial analysis.
We measure TV on the three transmission technologies
Thanks to the sample-based and the new census-based data collection systems, Auditel can currently measure all TV viewing: live, delayed or on-demand, on traditional TV sets or on digital devices (Smart TVs, PCs, Smartphones, Tablets, Game Consoles) allowing people to watch TV content from home or outside, on a fixed or mobile screen. Auditel has equipped the players that broadcasters use to deliver contents with a digital tag, a small software called SDK (Software Development Kit), which measures any single editorial or advertising fragment played and actually displayed. Auditel is the owner of the digital tag and has any rights over installation, development, and operation testing, in compliance with strict certification protocols regulated by the Communications Regulatory Authority (AgCom).
