By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – The CRTC’s CBC licence renewal hearing will be held in May and the deadline for interventions was on February 20th.
In perusing the various submissions and their attached commentaries, we felt a serious sense of déjà vu, since most comments fell into the very-much-expected category.
However, one intervention, by Canadian Media Research Inc. (CMRI) tweaked our curiosity because it very much runs contrary to conventional wisdom. CMRI is headed by Barry Kiefl, who was the CBC’s director of research from 1970-2000.
His submission’s thesis is the shift towards digital is overrated, prompted by faulty measurements and wrong assumptions. It says the traditional ways of delivering programs are still working well and any talk of the end of the Canadian broadcasting system is greatly exaggerated.
“Industry-standard metrics derived from Numeris and Comscore data, such as average audience and audience share (which measure engagement), reveal that news/information web sites account for only about 4% of all internet usage. CBC digital audiences are a fraction of this 4% and represent less than 1% of total internet usage.
“By these standard measures, CBC digital audiences are very small compared to CBC radio/TV services. CBC radio in particular, in both English and French, has a very substantial audience share, according to Numeris,” Kiefl writes in his presentation.
He goes on to argue “the metric that CBC strategy seems to have relied on heavily is ‘views’ as reported by Facebook, YouTube, etc. So, let’s dissect ‘views’. This seemingly innocuous measure generated by Facebook and YouTube servers continues to mislead advertisers and derail the business plans of many digital news and information web sites,” writes Kiefl.
Ouch.
Google and Facebook do not provide useful metrics and the Media Ratings Council (MRC), an association that audits and accredits rating companies like Nielsen, Numeris and Comscore, have tried to get Facebook and YouTube to adopt industry standards and when asked by CMRI, they responded that independently verified data was still work in progress.
Ironically, the CBC web site published an excellent article recently on internet metrics that quoted another very blunt expert: “To a certain extent,” he says, “all the metrics are fake.”
On that topic, Kiefl concludes: “At best, server data on views can only provide a very rough, comparative guide. We know that 1 million views is more than 100 views but that is about all we know. Therefore, CBC should use these metrics with great caution.”
He also criticizes the CBC’s own Mission Metrics Surveys, commissioned and published quarterly by the broadcaster. “Asking survey questions that provide basically the same results year-to-year, with an unachievable long-term target, and that do not differentiate between CBC services or other broadcasters is of dubious value,” Kiefl argues.
“New devices like smartphones have been added to the media mix and seem to have created a new audience, not displaced an old one.” – CMRI
The CRTC and the CBC should rely on independent high-quality surveys to measure mission instead.
He also found discrepancies between CRTC reports and CBC’s own Media Technology Monitor [MTM] when it comes to, for example, cord cutting. “CBC’s in-house custom survey, the Media Technology Monitor [MTM], has been incorrectly used to suggest that TV, including the use of TV sets, is in decline. The CBC uses the MTM to support a strategy that would see more resources put into digital media for consumption on small screens like smartphones,” reads the CMRI submission.
“Both computer server data and the MTM seem to be used by CBC to advocate shutting down CBC radio and TV transmitters, delivering content exclusively via the internet. The research evidence does not support this strategy,” he concludes.
“The ratings data show that traditional radio and television have seen some audience shift but radios and TV sets, like radio and TV broadcasters, have not been discarded in favour of smartphones and tablets; they will continue to play a significant role for the foreseeable future. New devices like smartphones have been added to the media mix and seem to have created a new audience, not displaced an old one,” writes Kiefl.
“Even if there is further audience shift to digital platforms, CBC would do well to carefully review their radio/TV and digital strategies and treat the internet not as a replacement for radio/TV but as the long sought interactive technology to engage with listeners and viewers,” he concludes.
The public hearing into the CBC’s licence renewal is scheduled to get under way May 25th.
