Dengle No 28 Broadcasting Research in a Surbiton Kitchen

Discovery and Significance of Weekly Reach

“Weekly Reach” means the percentage of the population who are served, at some point during a week, by a broadcast channel or station.

In 1975, audience measurement was mostly a matter of a ‘snapshot count’. The BBC ran a Daily Survey – this asked a nationwide sample “what did you see yesterday” and identified the proportion of a population who had seen each programme listed. ITV ran a “TV Ratings” system replete with falsehood; it measured the proportion of “homes” in which “the set”, being switched on supposedly denoted “homes viewing”. Later, at least partly in response to repeated criticism from the IBA (and its research department – ie, me) the “homes rating” was multiplied by a figure supposed to represent the number of people in a room for that time of day, to give the number supposed to have watched a programme.

In the 1980s commercial television measurement introduced keypads on which each individual (supposedly) pressed a button to show when they entered or left the room; this, with the data from the set meter, gave a better estimate of those who might have seen a programme.

In both cases, of the BBC’s audience research method and that of the commercial system, the focus was on the programme or the time slot – and the size of its audience. The focus was not on the individual viewer, what he or she thought, or felt, or did cumulatively over a day or over a week. During the 1980s the Commercial system of audience measurement was accepted by the BBC (with the – deeply unscientific – quid pro quo that the results of Appreciation measurement – still carried out – would be suppressed). This Broadcasters’ Audience Measurement system was adapted to be able to state how many of a sample will have been present for at least a ‘quorum segment’ of a broadcaster’s provision, during a week; but the system was still (and in the 2010s remains) not focused on individuals.

In 1975 the IBA had been running a weekly diary system whereby those who said they had seen a programme gave it a mark for how much they had Appreciated it. In so doing, they indicated they had seen the programme. As the diary ran for a week it was relatively easy to find who had seen at least one programme on a given channel during that week. This figure, of “weekly reach” – first calculated by hand after data entry on spread sheet on a kitchen table in Surbiton with the whole of a week’s diaries (some 500 in the sample – I well remember doing it) – was gradually recognised within the industry as being of some interest.

In subsequent decades – even over 30 years later – Weekly Reach has become a litmus test of the value of a broadcaster’s contribution. Weekly Reach can be calculated across the population represented at large, or amongst a segment of it (by sex, age, class or whatever social criterion). I argued (in pieces published occasionally since the 1990s) that the test of effective Public Service Broadcasting is a Reach as near universal as possible (probably across more than one channel) combined with a high level of average appreciation, for services delivering the widest possible range of programme genres and approaches – over a broadcasting schedule cycle – ie: a week.