The SABC and e.tv, have announced their reasons for supporting the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) intention to resign from the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF).
SAARF is the industry body that conducts media research to determine the levels of media consumption by South Africans.
The decision came yesterday after a proposal from NAB to have a greater representation of broadcast media on the SAARF Board was rejected by SAARF members at their Annual General Meeting on 26 June 2013.
e.tv and the SABC’s support for the decision came after a recent audit of SAARF’s Television Audience Measurement Survey (TAMS). TAMS provides daily audience ratings for television viewership of all television broadcasters in the country.
An audit the TAMS panel showed that there was a clear under-representation of middle to lower income households and an over-representation of upper income households. In the South African context, this effectively translates into an over representation of white television viewership and an under-representation of black television viewership.
Television broadcasters called for the audit of the TAMS Panel after they noticed shortcomings in the TAMS ratings during the course of last year. The SABC and e.tv had experienced an inexplicable fall in ratings in certain LSM (living standard measures) groups, particularly LSM 4 to LSM 6 which constitutes the lower to middle income South Africans who are the largest consumers of free-to-air television.
The audit was conducted by French media research audit firm CESP (Centre d’Etudes des Supports de Publicité) and showed that upper income television households were over-represented on the TAMS Panel as compared to middle-to-lower income television households. This translates into an over-representation of white television viewership and an under-representation of black television viewership.
Despite the efforts to engage with SAARF on these issues, the concerns were not taken seriously and have not received urgent attention from SAARF. The SABC and e.tv therefore fully support the NAB intention to resign from SAARF.
The SABC and e.tv will host a press briefing to provide further details on the TAMS Panel, the recent TAMS audit, and the proposed way forward.
