ABS-CBN vs. AGB Nielsen vs. GMA7 part 2

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Collective disgust. That was the general feeling at the end of the forum on the continuing saga over the alleged tampering of the TV ratings service in Bacolod. GMA7 had organized the event so that they may air their side on the controversy. They invited senior people from all the major media agencies. Key people like Lizelle Maralag (Starcom), Venus Navalta (Universal McCann), Oz Trinidad (Zenith Optimedia), Mitos Borromeo (Mindshare), Susan Dimacali (DDB), and Virgil Jamila (MediaForce) were in the audience.

The common unpleasantness expressed by most of the attendees centered on the issue of our industry not just laundering our dirty linen in public, but airing on primetime and ramming it down the throats of the ordinary, uninterested viewer. What benefit is there in announcing for all the world to see that such righteous and noble men that we supposedly are, guardians of truth and impartiality in reporting the news to the people, are in fact just as guilty of cheating as the politicians we routinely lambaste on the very same allegations?

Does Juana dela Cruz really need to know this? What does she know about peoplemeter surveys in the first place?

For the benefit of the non-industry reader, surveys are conducted to determine consumer behavior with regard to media consumption, specifically TV viewership patterns, radio listenership, print reading habits, and so on. Obviously, a key element of these exercises is that they are conducted very quietly so as not to unduly influence the behavior of the subjects being observed.

In quantum physics, this is known as the basis for the philosophical dictum that says, “It is impossible to know the absolute truth or reality because the very process of observing it disrupts that which is being observed, hence the actual true state of the subject can never be determined.” Only the observed state of the subject is what we get.

Apologies… I digress again. Going back to the surveys, my point was, every effort must be made to ensure that the act of gathering the research data does not disrupt the normal behavior of the subject being observed. Obviously, with what has happened, this is now practically impossible to achieve. ABS-CBN has in fact gone as far as to invite, live on the air, any members of the research panel homes to contact them and report if they had been approached by GMA7 representatives as part of the alleged efforts of GMA7 to influence the surveys.

Imagine that!

If anything, we were pleased with the approach that GMA7 took in conducting the forum only with those directly concerned. However, it still did not stop them from running their own set of primetime announcements denouncing the actuations of their main competitor.

For the benefit of those who were not present at the forum, I will try to summarize the key points raised by GMA7 in their defense:  

1. GMA7 does conduct regular promotions as part of their marketing activities to encourage higher viewership for their programs. These are all aboveboard and known to all industry practitioners. Most, if not all, major networks do the same. ABS-CBN in fact does it in more areas than GMA7 for the simple reason that it has more provincial stations that GMA7. But this does not constitute tampering with the surveys, as these are not directed at the panel homes.
2. The alleged employees or representatives of GMA7 could not show proof of that claim.
3. They had allegedly started their infiltration efforts in June 2006. The surveys started in January 2007.
4. The claim that 89 panel homes were infiltrated does not jive with existing data because based on representative sampling, there are only about 32 homes from Bacolod that represent the area.
5. GMA7 does not even operate a TV station in Bacolod. They closed it down years and decided they will cover Negros out of Iloilo.
6. In all this time that GMA7 had supposedly been able to tamper with the surveys, the ratings of GMA7 never showed a significant rise versus those of ABS-CBN in Bacolod.

I am hoping ABS-CBN will conduct a similar closed room forum with industry leaders so that we also hear their side without having to decipher it from the chopped up announcements they’ve been airing since last month.

From the audience, one question that remained unanswered was, “Where did the goodies come from? By this we meant the supposedly Php500 a month plus groceries that the alleged panel infiltrators were giving to the respondent households to make them switch channels. If they were not from GMA7, then perhaps they were really aliens from Mars who wanted to see how these little brown men from a small country known for cheating in elections and all kinds of fraud – credit card fraud, fake passports, and US visas – would react if they tampered with the TV survey.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions advanced in this article is the author’s own, and may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of THE LOBBYiST, its editors, or its publishers.

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