TV research

The purpose of  electronic cross-platform audience measurement and media consumption is to obtain detailed, reliable and comprehensive television audience data in the households of the Czech Republic. These data are used primarily by individual television stations, media and advertising agencies, advertisers and auditors.

The project involves television audience measurement on TV sets (both live and time-shifted viewing since 2013) and on other devices where TV programmes are available via online platforms and applications of TV stations involved (the digital part, so-called PEM D, has been included in the project since 2018). Measuring HbbTV services on TV sets is also a part of PEM D.

The PCEM and its characteristics:

• Measuring is conducted on a representative sample of 1 900 households with TV receivers. The households being measured are guaranteed anonymity in respect of advertisers and users of the data.
• Television viewing is measured for all individuals older than 4 years including all TV receivers in the respective household.
• Data from at least 1,700 households per day are guaranteed.
• The panel of households was compiled based on an extensive Introductory Survey carried out in 2022 to determine basic characteristics connected to television viewing.
• The panel of households is varied and supplemented on a regular basis and undergoes a 15-25% redefinition every year.
• The structure of the panel is checked and modified on a regular basis so that the sample of households corresponds to the socio-demographic profile of households and individuals in the Czech Republic as per the latest data from the Czech Statistical Office.
• The panel’s make-up is also regularly checked with respect to possible changes in the characteristics influencing the television audience in the Czech Republic.
• So-called continuous surveying, which is carried out every year on a representative sample of at least 12,000 households in four quarterly waves, serves to map changes in the characteristics of the Czech television market.
• For example, continuous surveying ascertains the behaviour of Czech households with respect to television, technical television equipment, the ability to receive television stations, etc.
• Television viewing in households is electronically measured using the TV metre system. The basic measuring technology used is the so-called audio-matching, i.e. comparing sound prints from television receivers measured with a set of reference sounds of the measured TV stations. The measuring is independent of the TV signal transmission mode (terrestrial, satellite, cable, IPTV, the Internet).
• Since 2013, the project has also been measuring the so-called time-shifted viewing of programmes, i.e. watching the programme later than it was broadcasted live on television over the following 7 days. This can be done for example by playing the content of TV station archives, TV provider archives etc., or playing the programme recorded by the household, via the so-called Smart TV, and so on.
• TV viewing on the computers of the measured panel’s members is also measured (especially deferred viewing through internet archives of TV stations).
• Since 2018, the PCEM project has expanded by a new “PEM D” digital part, adding digital devices such as computers, tablets, mobile phones as well as Smart TVs via the HbbTV platform to content consumption measurement transmitted by the Internet.
• Throughout the day, the TV metre is continuously sending the data through mobile operator data transfer to the processing centre.
• The data measured in the panel households are checked by Nielsen Admosphere every morning and linked to programme transmission information and the individual programme descriptions (transmission protocols) provided by the individual television sets.
• Once processed, the daily data are available to users every day including Saturdays, Sundays and all public holidays until 08:00 (at the most 2 hours following the end of the television day, which runs from 06:00 to 06:00).
• The data provided comprise viewing information that is precise to the second, information about programmes, and socio-demographic information about households and the individual viewers in those households.
• Information about respondents is continuously updated to include data about their lifestyles and consumer behaviour from the lifestyle survey (LSS).