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34-457: The People Meter is a 'box', about the size of a paperback book. The box is hooked up to each television set and is accompanied by a remote control unit. Each family member in a sample household is assigned a personal 'viewing button'. It identifies each household member's age and sex. If the TV is turned on and the viewer doesn't identify themselves, the meter flashes to remind them. Additional buttons on

68-523: A 'frequency-based meter', was invented by a British company called Audits of Great Britain (AGB). The successor company to AGB is TNS , which is active in 34 countries around the globe. Originally, these meters identified the frequency of the channels - VHF or UHF - watched on the viewer's TV set. This system became obsolete when Direct to Home ( DTH ) satellite dish became popular and viewers started to get their own satellite decoders. In addition, this system doesn't measure digital broadcasts. Before

102-516: A database of thousands of screened respondents . For each survey a selection is made from the database and submitted to the respondents. TNS NIPO's goal is to have the respondents surveyed once every six weeks. TNS NIPO uses software from NIPO Software for its research surveys. The five following methods of research are used: The appropriate research form depends on the subject and target group. In 2003, when company went from being Taylor Nelson Sofres with several local names to one unified TNS,

136-634: A gateway or the user's smartphone, while the accompanying gateway includes a Quectel EG21-G 4G LTE module as data uplink. The original concept for the PPM can be traced to a brainstorming session at Arbitron in November 1988. Concerns over the forthcoming move from analog video to high-definition digital television had engineers concerned that the technology then in use would become obsolete overnight. Drawing upon his experience in testing laboratories, Dr. Gerald Cohen proposed embedding an identifying signal in

170-605: A new logo was designed. Wolff Olins was the agency behind the 2003 rebrand. Daniella Meirelles, a Brand Consultant at Wolff Olins was the one who brought the global project to the agency. Then in early 2012 the old logo was altered further. Portable People Meter The Portable People Meter (PPM), also known as the Nielsen Meter, is a system developed by Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio ) to measure how many people are exposed to individual radio stations and television stations . This also includes cable television . The PPM

204-415: A new variation of the idea—selectively embed a code into the frequency spectrum of the baseband audio stream and use digital signal processing in a small wearable device to recover the embedded code buried in what a person watches or hears. Convinced that the concept could be achieved, Mr. Kolessar obtained approval from Arbitron's management to undertake a fast-track effort to determine feasibility. Lacking

238-541: A number of politicians challenged Arbitron and the PPM's accuracy in measuring minority listening. Although the makers of the PPM claim that it is more accurate than traditional alternatives like handwritten logs or wired meters, critics have raised issues about its accuracy. Another sales argument is that the device is immune to human forgetfulness, something that can be an issue in studies that rely on self-reporting by test subjects. Some radio producers have seen their audience numbers plummet in cities where Arbitron adopted

272-625: Is a global market research and market information group with offices in over 80 countries. Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index , the firm was acquired by WPP Group for £1.6 billion in October 2008, when it became part of WPP's Kantar Group. In April 2019, Kantar announced that it was unifying all its legacy brands (including Kantar TNS) and consolidating all services and offerings under

306-442: Is worn like a pager and detects hidden audio tones within a station or network's audio stream, logging each time it finds a signal. There are several parts to the PPM system: PPM original concept requires the base station connection to a telephone line in order to transmit panelists' listening data from the PPM to the collection point. The PPM 360, introduced in 2010, uses cellular telephone technology to accomplish this without

340-891: The 1940s, Intersearch in the US in 1960; then AGB in the UK in 1962; Sofres in France in 1963; Frank Small Associates (FSA) in Australia in 1964; Taylor Nelson in the UK in 1965. Over the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, these companies grew significantly as individual businesses. The 1990s and early years of the new millennium saw consolidation in the industry. In 1991 AGB and Taylor Nelson merged to create Taylor Nelson AGB. In 1992, Sofres acquired Secodip. In 1997, Sofres combined with FSA. In 1997, Sofres acquired Intersearch and then merged with Taylor Nelson AGB, thus creating TNS. In 1998 Taylor Nelson Sofres acquired Chilton Market Research, followed by CMR in 2000, and

374-625: The Kantar brand name. The history of TNS as a market research company began in 1946 with the establishment of National Family Opinion (NFO) in the United States . Since then, various mergers and acquisitions involving large companies from the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific eventually became the Taylor Nelson Sofres group. The 1960s saw the establishment of the six main companies that today form part of TNS. Starting with NFO in

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408-584: The NFO WorldGroup in 2003. In 2006, a class action lawsuit was filed against TNS alleging that it failed to disclose major financial information in a registration statement associated with the company's secondary offering . The TNS Group continues to grow, mainly by acquiring small research companies to strengthen its position in markets in which it already has a presence. For example, in December 2007, TNS acquired Landis Strategy & Innovation in

442-481: The PPM delivers empirical, verifiable audience measurement data, these results are sometimes at odds with the results generated with the diary method, which asks listeners to note each change of their radio dial. Some minority diarists may have used their diaries as a way to support and show loyalty for stations that targeted their communities. Around 2008, the Spanish Radio Association (SRA) and

476-469: The PPM. Arbitron settled with five states that brought discrimination suits and promised more representative sampling. Radio host Delilah blamed the device for "horrendous" damage to her measured audience numbers. One potential culprit raised by critics is the psychoacoustic masking techniques used to embed the signal; Delilah, for example, has suggested that the masking causes the signal to get lost in certain styles of music, thus not getting picked up by

510-522: The People Meter advances, Nielsen used the diary method, which consisted of viewers physically recording the shows they watched. However, there were setbacks with the system. Lower-rated stations claimed the diary method was inaccurate and biased. They argued that because they had lower ratings, those who depended on memory for the diary method may only remember to track their favorite shows. Stations also argued that if it wasn't low ratings that skewed

544-433: The People Meter enable guests to participate in the sample by recording their age, sex and viewing status into the system. Another version of the device is small, about the size of a beeper, that plugs into the wall below or near each TV set in household. It monitors anything that comes on the TV and relays the information with the small Portable People Meter to narrow down who is watching what and when. The device, known as

578-572: The U.S. market executing similar technology, Nielsen felt the need to compete. Nielsen made a substantial technological advance before network-era norms entered crisis with transition to the national People Meter sample in 1987. Although People Meters presented substantial improvements over the previous system, the alteration in audience measurement caused significant controversy. The method change costs stations whose audience had been overestimated. The networks firmly disagreed; they pointed out that certain demographics such as young children could not operate

612-699: The United States, a specialist research-based consultancy. In the same month, TNS announced that it had reached agreement to increase its ownership of LatinPanel Holdings from 33.3% to 100%. TNS was formerly a joint venture partner with the NPD Group and the IBOPE Group in this continuous consumer panel business serving Latin America operating in 15 countries in Latin America, and covering 96% of

646-560: The Year. TNS is structured around specific areas of marketing expertise: Brand & Communication; Innovation & Product Development; Retail & Shopper; Customer Experience; Employee Engagement; Qualitative; Automotive; and Political & Social. TNS separates its worldwide operations in over eighty three countries into a number of regional divisions: North America ; Northern Europe ; Southern Europe; Asia Pacific ; Latin America; and Africa, Mediterranean and Middle East. TNS NIPO has

680-456: The accuracy of radio ratings, Arbitron and Nielsen Media Research are testing a "portable people meter" (PPM) for radio. This new device to be clipped to an individual's clothing. Radio stations encode an inaudible, unique signal as part of their broadcasts. The PPM "hears" this signal and records the station and the time spent listening. Such a device requires far less effort on the part of respondents. Taylor Nelson Sofres Kantar TNS

714-435: The audio and later decoding it. Dr. Cohen argued that audio was less likely to undergo as drastic a change in content and technology as would video, hence any technology developed would likely not become obsolete in a few years. The concept was presented to the company and also written up in a short concept document. A preliminary investigation was undertaken, but the technology was never given serious consideration. The concept

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748-636: The automated LPM system. "Nielsen introduced the LPM as evidence of the rupturing of the network-era business model became broadly apparent, and apprehension about the future of the industry erupted on all sectors. LPM’s more accurately reported full range of what programming viewers watched, including what was observed when channel surfing, in comparison to the diary method it replaced. It allowed Nielsen to maintain established measurement practices, but do them better”. “While Nielsen’s LPM’s presented next-day demographic analyses on television viewership in major cities,

782-517: The devices led to accusations of undercounting minorities. A lot of controversy surrounding LPM’s was driven by News Corporation-funded “Don’t Count Us Out” alliance, which exploited activists’ and legislators’ foreseeable mindless reactions to any suggestion of racism” (Lowry, 2004). Today there are new systems such as the Portable People Meter and 'Picture Matching' measuring the viewing habits of TV audiences. In an effort to improve

816-559: The diary method, it might also be the new variety of channels for viewers to choose from. Viewers may not be able to record everything they watch and there is no way of discovering the truth. Finally in 1986, Nielsen developed an electronic meter, People Meter, to solve the problem. The People Meter is an electronic method of television measurement that moved from active and diary-based to passive and meter-monitored. The meter also recorded real time simultaneously viewing, reducing memory bias. Because Audits of Great Britain (AGB) had just entered

850-548: The internal expertise to do so, additional outside help from the company, Martin Marietta , was sought. Facing cutbacks in the defense industry, Martin Marietta agreed to take on the commercial project, relinquishing all rights to the technology they would develop. Engineers at Martin Marietta decided that the best approach was to employ the principle of psychoacoustics to mask the embedded code signal, an approach described in U.S. patent 5,450,490 . Now that Dr. Cohen's idea

884-404: The need for a wired telephone service. Additionally, it has a motion sensor which detects when the PPM is being worn by an active person. After 30 minutes of inactivity, the PPM goes into a low-power "sleep" mode in order to conserve battery life. The newer generation NPM-1 meter was introduced in 2021. According to FCC filings, the meter uses Bluetooth Low Energy to transmit collected data to

918-728: The people meter accurately, thus underestimating the number of children watching a particular program. The end of the multi-channel transition was in large part due to the continuous changes in technology and distribution. Nielsen was at a disadvantage as their measuring techniques required burdensome adjustments. Luckily for Nielsen, the advances in advertising strategies, distribution windows, and ways people were using television made industry sectors interested in data about viewing behavior. Along with changing their counting methods, Nielsen also started emphasizing their sample in 2003 in reaction to census shifts and requests from some industry sectors. Nielsen's automated Local People Meter (LPM) technology

952-452: The region’s GDP, providing local and international clients with access to a household research panel across the packaged groceries, toiletries and cosmetics, fresh foods and textile retail markets. In early March 2008, TNS announced the merging of its North American operating units TNS Media Intelligence, TNS Media Research with the recently acquired firms Compete and Cymfony to create TNS Media Group. On 29 April 2008 TNS announced that it

986-502: The table. On 9 October 2008 WPP declared that its latest bid had been successful and that it was buying TNS for $ 1.93bn. TNS was bought by WPP's Kantar Group . Many Kantar subsidiary companies underwent restructuring and rebranding. In 2013, TNS acquired Sinotrust Market Research, a leading market research and consulting company in China. On 8 September 2016, TNS was rebranded as Kantar TNS. On 2 April 2019, Kantar announced that it

1020-649: Was a full-fledged project with management support, engineers at Arbitron focused on improving the encoding and detection methodology and miniaturization into a hand-held device. Additional capabilities such as motion detection were added later on. In 2005, EE Times, as part of their Great Minds, Great Ideas project, profiled Mr. Kolessar as the "Inventor of the Portable People Meter". Arbitron , as well as other firms that provide research and consulting services to radio stations, have begun publishing numerous studies based on analysis of PPM data. Although

1054-458: Was in talks to merge with German market research company GfK . The announcement was followed in May by two conditional offers from WPP to buy TNS for a combination of cash and shares, both of which were rejected by TNS’s board. The hostile WPP bid led to GfK and TNS abandoning their merger plans. GfK sought without success to find backing for a rival offer, leaving WPP’s hostile bid as the only one on

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1088-529: Was introduced in New York and Los Angeles. The LPM improved the method of measurement from active and diary-based to passive and meter-monitored. More importantly, the LPM provides accurate measurements to particular local markets, verse a nationwide sample from the People meter. While diary-based surveys concentrated on quarterly “sweeps” periods, the industry has been pushed towards year-round measurement, due to

1122-539: Was retiring the names of its brands (including Kantar TNS) and consolidating all services and offerings under the Kantar brand name. TNS NIPO is a Dutch survey agency . Together with Synovate (formerly Interview-NSS) and Surveys from Maurice de Hond ( Peil.nl ), it is one of the top three ( political ) survey agencies in the Netherlands . In June 2013, TNS NIPO received the MOAward for Market Research Office of

1156-538: Was written off and forgotten, as Arbitron had larger issues in its competition with the Nielsen Company for television ratings. After losing to Nielsen Company, Arbitron went back to its core business—radio ratings. Dr. Cohen's idea lay dormant until 1992, when Dr. Richard Schlunt and Dr. Patrick Nunally approached Arbitron. Meeting with Ronald Kolessar the Director of Technology, Dr. Cohen and others presented

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