asi conferences

The 2009 European Radio Symposium
‘Managing Change’ - 4th November, Istanbul

The transformation of radio broadcasting from analogue to digital in Europe faces a number of difficult challenges, none of which has been made any easier by the economic conditions in the marketplace. Perhaps the most significant of these problems at a European level is profound disagreement about the technology to be adopted with most of the argument being about DAB versus DAB+. There is a real danger that digital radio faces an expensive and fragmented future as different countries back different technologies.

Yet digital radio does offer significant opportunities for the broadcaster and added value benefits to the listener. New developments such as digital terrestrial radio, satellite delivered radio, subscription radio, online social radio networks such as Spotify, internet radio stations and mobile radio contribute to the medium’s omnipresence. What are the issues facing the traditional radio industry in this multi-platform future?

Delegates will hear an account of a tool to evaluate cross media (radio and online) campaign plans. There will also be a paper from the Netherlands where there have been a number of studies into the contribution radio makes to mixed media campaigns.

The audience measurement issues remain very difficult to resolve. What is the current situation in relation to portable meters and what are the unresolved problems they still face? Could new developments in the analysis of audiomatching data point a way forward? How might some of the fundamental design issues in developing online diaries be resolved? In the last 12 months Nielsen has returned to the radio measurement market. What has prompted this move and what are the characteristics of the approach it has adopted? What insights are provided to both advertisers and programmers by the data gathered from a multimedia panel into the links between radio and television consumption?

The 2009 European Television Symposium
‘TV Anytime, Anywhere’ - 5th-6th November, Istanbul
 

The transformation of the television industry as a consequence of rapidly developing technology continues to put pressure on broadcasters. Particularly difficult in this past year with the global economy seemingly in meltdown, the immediate future for conventional revenue streams doesn’t seem encouraging. Some forecasters are even suggesting a decline of 33% in ad revenue in 2010. Many feel that TV needs to focus on monetising content across all platforms and most of the big players have plans in place to do so. Having seen much of their content copied and illegally uploaded to any number of video sharing sites, developments in Europe such as Canvas and HbbTV are seeing many broadcasters cooperating to protect their most valuable assets. Meanwhile Hulu, the US equivalent service, is said to be looking to launch in the UK this autumn.

The former chief of the BBC’s future technology strategy recently argued that broadcasters have a window of two to three years to respond to the online challenge. This challenge, he argues, has three main drivers. Firstly, new audience facing technologies in the home will become two-way interfaces giving the consumer more control. Secondly, audience behaviour is likely to change with the new trend of viewers doing something else whilst viewing – perhaps online or via their mobiles – likely to accelerate. And then, as online and TV continue to merge, so new business models need to be developed to monetise content online.

So the challenges to the audience measurement community become ever more pressing. TV audience measurement is a well established discipline in many countries and a great many very significant decisions depend upon it. But the technological changes taking place and the changes in consumer behaviour that follow call some of the well established practices into question. ‘Obvious’ new solutions are put forward as better able to inform. Is there a danger that more information might generate disinformation? Are years of development and evolution now irrelevant or is the danger that we forget principles that still hold good despite changing environments? Two major European markets have addressed these questions in the last year and, to varying degrees, each has considered new approaches. Delegates to the conference will consider how radical a re-invention each has been and how the role of the peoplemeter could need to be transformed in the near future. The symposium will also hear for the first time of a new measurement initiative using IPTV return path technology.

Although it is still early days, those attending the conference will get some insight into how consumers are actually viewing video by the various platforms available to them. There will also be a number of accounts of who is watching on-line and what they are watching. We shall also be hearing of a number of further applications of return path data. Whereas it has in the main been developed as an audience measurement device, it is now increasingly being used in conjunction with other new data streams to create single source type solutions and powerful marketing effectiveness tools. In the last few years some markets have switched off their analogue signals. How has this transition to digital transmission affected viewing patterns in some of these countries?