Terminology

Individuals aged 15 or over are classified as Adults within the TAM service. 

Television platform using analogue signal wavelengths.

An audience category is a classification of the viewing audience into a specific group. The following audiences are sometimes referred to as main categories - Homes, Individuals, Adults, Men, Women, Children and Housekeepers. Sub-categories are more detailed breakdowns of the main categories - by age groups, social class etc.

The audience profile shows how a main audience category is divided into its subcategories (such as age, social grade or sex) in percentage terms. For example, if a programme achieves an Adult ABC1 profile of 10%, this means that 10% of adult viewers were ABC1, while the other 90% were, C2DE or F1F2 Adults. An audience profile can be compared with the equivalent population profile to produce an index.

See Share.

A commercial break audience is defined as the duration weighted average of all the commercial spot audiences in the break.

The commercial spot audience is defined as the audience for the minute in which the commercial starts.

A programme audience is the average of all the minute audiences covered by the programme transmission,.

A daypart (e.g. quarter hour)  audience is the average of the one minute audiences in that time segment/daypart.

Any audience measure that has been generated by applying the TAM defined calculation methodology and procedures to TAM audience data.

Television services which are transmitted over wires rather than over the airwaves.

The member of the household with the greatest total income.

TAM reports viewing for Children aged 4-14.

The Consolidated audience is the sum of the live and timeshift audiences.

See Reach.

Cost-Per-Thousand. The cost of one thousand commercial impacts for a target audience. Cost-Per-Thousand (CPT) is used when purchasing and measuring the efficiency of advertising campaigns. 

A daypart is a section of the viewing day, for example All Day (0300-2659) or peak time (1800-2329).

Digital Cable.

The Government is switching off all the analogue broadcast wavelengths for television, from the Autumn of 2012. From that point onwards, all television broadcasts will be available in digital format only. (see Digital TV)...

Television platform using digital signal wavelengths. The digital wavelengths are transmitted in a binary format which allows more information to be carried within the same bandwidth than analogue, resulting in more channels, better quality picture, sound and interactive services.

Digital Satellite.

Digital Terrestrial Television. This is the term applied to the digital system which will take over from analogue from Autumn 2012. All homes currently receiving television off-air will require a digital box.

DVD Recorder.

A viewing card is required to enable viewing to these channels.

Electronic Programme Guide. Channel and programme listing service available on digital TV.

Survey undertaken to determine the ownership of television equipment and demographic characteristics of the population. Results are used to determine the panel controls against which the panel is maintained. TAM Ireland Establishment Survey respondents also provide the pool of households from which TAM panel homes are recruited.

No subscription fee is payable in order to view the channel.

The (average) number of times a commercial is seen by those within the target audience who see it at all. Average frequency is sometimes referred to as average OTS (see OTS).

Gross Rating Point. Often used as a measure of the overall weight of an advertising campaign. One rating point is numerically equivalent to one per cent of the target audience (see also TVR).

Viewing by non panel members within panel homes. Guests are asked to provide details of their sex and age group via the Unitam  handset. Regular guests may be allocated their own button on the handset, though their viewing will continue to be treated as guest viewing.

A device similar to a remote control which panel members use to register and deregister their presence in a room where a television set is on.

High Definition Television. A television service containing a high number of pixels which delivers a clearer and sharper picture.

The Head of Household is the household member who either owns the property, is responsible for paying the rent, has use of the home as a result of his/her job, or is related to the owner or main tenant (where the owner or main tenant is not a regular member of the household).

The amount of television watched by a particular audience category. This is usually expressed as an average over a given time period.

The number of individuals who regularly live in the household.

The member of the household who is solely or mainly responsible for the  main grocery shop. A housekeeper may be male or female. There is only one housekeeper per household.

Housekeepers living in a household in which a child (or children) aged 0-14 also lives.

A measure of viewing to commercial spots. One impact is one member of the target audience viewing one commercial. Impacts are added together to give, e.g. the total impacts delivered by a particular spot, the gross total achieved by a particular advertising campaign or the total supplied by a given channel. A total of 10 impacts could be achieved in a number of ways: by ten people viewing a single commercial; by one person seeing the commercial ten times; by five people seeing the commercial twice and so on.

TAM Ireland reports audiences for Individuals aged 4+.

Mixing traditional television with interactive content on digital TV via the ‘red button’. Information can include links to further programmes, interactive games, commercial advertiser content etc. 

Internet Protocol Television. A method of delivering television services via broadband.

The audience to a minute, commercial, daypart or programme at the time of its transmission.

See Impacts.

Panel members reporting on the middle day of a given time period (e.g. a schedule of commercial spots) often used as a sample base for reach and frequency analysis.

The clock minute is the basic reporting unit within the TAM system.. Each clock minute is attributed to the channel that is viewed the longest within the clock minute subject to there being at least 30 seconds of viewing and the viewing to the channel crosses the 30^th second within the minute..

A home able to receive more than the 4 Irish channels (RTE, TV3, TG4).

A home possessing more than one television in working order (see Television Home).

Negative Binomial Distribution. A probability model used in the calculation of reach and frequency for commercial spot schedules. 

A panel home (or individual panel member) which does not view any television across a given time period is known as a nil viewer.

Opportunity To See ads in a campaign. Total (target audience) OTS of a television campaign is equivalent to the total number of (target audience) impacts delivered by that campaign. Average OTS is equivalent to average frequency (see Frequency).

TAM Irelandmeasures TV viewing within private domestic households. The only type of out-of-home viewing captured is guest viewing (see Guest Viewing).

The previous day’s viewing is released to the industry at 9.30am the next day.

Sample of people used for regular research. The TAM panel as of 01 september 2010 will consist of 800, homes circa 1,800 individuals aged 4+ whose television viewing is measured and reported every single day.

Pay TV service allowing users to pay for each programme they watch rather than via a monthly fee. For example, box office films may be watched via pay-per-view.

TV service that requires a viewer to pay a one off or regular subscription fee in order to view. 

The length of time that a TV needs to be in a particular status (e.g. tuned to a particular channel) before this status is recorded by the meter. This is currently set to 15 seconds for Live viewing.

A term encompassing the various ways in which a home can receive television. For example, digital cable, digital satellite, etc..

Viewing of broadcast material that has been recorded (see also Timeshift Audience).

The daily process whereby viewing data is collected by telephone from each panel home.

The number of people in the ‘universe’ or ‘target group’.

A classification of programmes into particular types (e.g. drama, sport, documentary).

A form of promotion where a company or product associates itself with a programme. This is done via credits at the beginning and end of the programme and in the programme breaks.

Personal Video Recorder. Digital recorder, e.g.UPC,Digital +, Sky +, and others, that allows a viewer to record programmes from an EPG and pause live TV for later viewing. 

Sample designed to strict procedures to ensure that each member of the target audience has a known chance of being selected for interview. TAM Establishment Survey interviewees are selected via random probability sampling.

See TVR.

The net number or percentage of people who have seen a particular piece of broadcast output (e.g. a programme, daypart, channel, TV advertising campaign).

Programme or daypart reach assesses what percentage of the population saw a specified amount of a programme or daypart. It is also used cumulatively to assess the total net percentage that saw a specified amount of a complete series/month of television etc. There are various ways of defining the amount of viewing an individual must have done in order to be counted as having been "reached". The TAM Ireland definition is for this is 1+ minute.

For TV advertising campaigns, reach (the net percentage of the target audience to have at least one opportunity to see the campaign) is often used in conjunction with frequency (the average number of times the campaign was seen by those within the target audience who were reached) to produce an overall measure of campaign exposure.

See Interactive Television.

The number of individuals in a sample group.

Supplied to satellite, cable (both analogue and digital) and digital terrestrial homes to enable them to receive signals to their television sets. 

The percentage of the total viewing audience watching over a given period of time. This can apply to channels, programmes, time periods etc. For example, a share of 58% for Coronation Street would mean that, of all the viewers watching television when Coronation Street was being transmitted, 58% were watching Coronation Street.

Service Information Code. A code broadcast by a channel that uniquely identifies that channel. SI codes are used by the Unitam meter to monitor the channel being viewed on the digital satellite platform.

The simultaneous broadcasting of the same programme on different TV channels.

A classification of household social status based on the occupation of the chief income earner which is then applied to all Adults 15+ in the household. TAM Ireland reports the following social grades:

AB

C1

C2

DE

F1F2 

An individual occurrence of a commercial.

Broadcast of channel output on a secondary channel at a fixed time after the original broadcast. The most commonly used time lag is one hour, and such secondary channels are often labelled "+1".

A household which has at least one television in working order  is classed as a TV home.

Television received via a normal rooftop or indoor aerial.

For reporting purposes the TAM Ireland broadcast day runs for 30? hours from 3am to 2659...

See Weighted Impacts.

The playback audience to a video or PVR/DVDR recording of a minute, commercial, daypart or programme. The recording must be played back within 7 days (168 hours) of the original transmission to be counted by TAM Ireland

The length of time that a channel broadcasts in any given day.

A detailed description of the events (programmes, commercials etc) broadcast each day by a particular channel. The logs are combined with minute-by-minute TAM audience data so that audiences can be reported for particular programmes, commercial breaks or individual commercial spots.

The TVR (Television Rating) is the measure of a programme, daypart, commercial break or advertisement by comparing its audience to the TV population as a whole. One TVR is numerically equivalent to one per cent of a target audience. For example, if a programme achieved a Housekeeper TVR of 20 in multichannel homes this means that, on average during the programme, 20% of all Housekeepers in multichannel homes watched Coronation Street.

Commercial campaigns are frequently assessed by adding the TVRs of their individual spots to produce 

Total TVRs for the campaign.

Nielsen TAM’s  meter used  for the electronic measurement system which monitors the channel that a TV set is tuned to and the individuals present in the room while the TV set is switched on

The total population of a particular audience category. TAM universes are based on television homes. For example, the universe for ABC1 Women is the total number of ABC1 Women living within television households in Ireland.

To view 2010 Universes click here.

Video Cassette Recorder. 

A facility offered by digital television providers where households can access a movie or programme that can be watched at any time. 

A panel member (or guest) is defined to be viewing when they are present in a room with a TV set switched on.

Viewing-On-Same-Day-As-Live. Time-shifted viewing that has been viewed on the same day as the original broadcast is included in the overnight file which is released at 9.30am the following day (see Overnights).

Impacts may be weighted back to a "thirty second equivalent" according to the value of any commercial length relative to a 30 second spot. The relative values differ according to individual broadcasters.

Channel hopping through different television channels.

Fast forwarding through recorded commercials when watching a pre-recorded programme.