Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1956)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES INSTANTANEOUS RATING SYSTEM CLAIM MADE BY WEST COAST AGENCY EXECUTIVE Lennen & Newell's Benjamin Potts announces development of Telerad, electronic setup said capable of delivering qualitative and quantitative count of audience every 30 seconds. DEVELOPMENT of a new electronic audience rating system for television and radio, which instantaneously will present both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the audience every 30 seconds during a program, was described Thursday to B»T by Benjamin R. Potts, vice president and manager of the Los Angeles office of Lennen & Newell. Devised by Robert Miller, professor of marketing at the U. of Southern California; George Wood, engineer, and Gerald Katz, statistician, both with Hughes Aircraft Corp., the new audience analysis system is based on wartime-developed radar principles to continuously sample the tv or radio audience and show who is viewing or listening among the sample and the program to which they are tuned. Mr. Potts, who plans to resign from his agency post May 1 to devote full time to the new development and possibly other agency work, said both NBC and CBS have expressed interest in the system and that a cost analysis is under way to present to NBC for full-scale field testing of the device. The test would be made in Los Angeles. Prototype unit has been developed by Behlman Engineering Lab, Burbank, Calif., where demonstrations are being shown to networks, agencies and others. Possible AAAA Project Mr. Potts envisions the system as the broadcast media's combination answer to the Audit Bureau of Circulation and Starch Reports of the publishing field. He told B»T that agency inquiries show that the system is considered as a potential advertising project which the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies could undertake. Messrs. Miller, Wood and Katz are organizing a corporation tentatively called Telerad Audit of Broadcast. Mr. Potts is representing Telerad in promotion of the system and in securing financial backing. It is estimated about $5 million would be required to install some 20,000 Telerad recorder units in home tv receivers throughout the U. S., although it is expected that the installations would be made 100 units at a time in any given market until a proper sample size is achieved. Initial concentration will be on television because of the bigger economic stake of the advertiser. Mr. Potts said he understood that the A. C. Nielsen Co. has only 68 Audimeters installed in the Los Angeles market and about 850 units nationally. Telerad technically works like this, according to Lewis Behlman, head of the Burbank engineering firm. A central communications center is established. In Los Angeles it will be atop Mt. Wilson, where the transmitters of the seven local tv stations are located. Here a battery of electronic computers is set up for each program channel in the area. The center transmits a high frequency synchronizing signal to the Telerad reporter units attached to the tv receiving sets in the sample homes. The synchronizing signal triggers each Telerad recorder unit to transmit at a pre-set instant what program channel it is tuned to. This reply transmission is picked up by a special receiver at the communications center and fed to computers for the respective program channel. The computer then supplies on tape or card an analysis of the audience at that moment. The analysis shows how many are listening and can break down the complete sample by individual units so that a qualitative study by economic or other sample strata is possible. Mr. Behlman explained that each Telerad recorder unit transmits its information in a brief consecutive instant during the 30-second reporting cycle, with the transmission timing precisely keyed by the central synchronizing signal. He said 1,000 reporting units in Los Angeles could be sampled accurately for all seven channels within each 30-second cycle as a result of electronic advances achieved in radar experience. Mr. Behlman said a special allocation would have to be obtained from the FCC to operate the system and felt that a sharing arrangement on unused uhf frequencies would work well. He said the Telerad reporter unit on the home receiver would operate at about 1 watt but through storage of signal capacity would burst about 20 watts in each reply transmission. Each reporter unit installed on a home receiver would cost about $100, Mr. Wood told B»T. Instead of paying the home resident as Nielsen does, he said, Telerad is considering offering free servicing and repair parts for the home receiver. Mr. Potts said the Telerad system may also be important to the industry in reappraising radio as an advertising medium, since the reporter unit will work on home radios, portables and auto sets. He said radio is not accurately surveyed now because existing survey systems are not of sufficient scope. Messrs. Miller, Katz and Wood began development of Telerad about 18 months ago. Construction of the Behlman prototype began six months ago. Mr. Potts said he has made a telephone presentation to CBS Inc. President Frank Stanton and that Howard S. Meighan, vice president in charge of the western division of CBS-TV, has viewed a demonstration. Mr. Potts recalled that Dr. Stanton about a decade ago began work toward an instantaneous audience measurement system (IAM). Others who have seen a demonstration include John K. West, NBC Pacific Div. vice president, and Thomas W. Sarnoff, the division's director of production and business affairs. Mr. Sarnoff is said to have presented the system to his father, Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff, RCA board chairman, when Gen. Sarnoff was enroute to Hawaii several weeks ago. IN MINNEAPOLIS -ST. PAUL TV WHOSE COMMERCIALS GET MOST EXPOSURE? Hooper Index of Broadcast Advertisers (Bated on Broadcast Advertisers Reports monitoring) NATIONAL (NETWORK) INDEX Rank Product & Agency 1. Pillsbury (Leo Burnett Co.) 2. Betty Crocker (BBDO) Hooper Index Network Total Commercial of Broadcast Shows Network Units Advertisers 122 52 HOW THEY COMPARE IN MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL . Rank Product and Agency 1. Pillsbury (Leo Burnett Co.) 2. Betty Crocker (BBDO) 3. Dromedary (Ted Bates & Co.) Hooper Index Network Total "Commercial of Broadcast Shows Stations Units" Advertisers 6 7 10 no 73 59 The Hooper Index of Broadcast Advertisers is a measure of the extent to which a sponsor's commercials are seen or heard. Each commercial is assigned a number of "commercial units," according to its length.* This number is then multiplied by the audience rating attributed to that commercial.** When each commercial has thus been evaluated, the results for all commercials of each sponsor are added to form the HIBA. For further details of preparation, see the basic reports published by C. E. Hooper, Inc., Broadcast Advertisers Reports Inc. and American Research Bureau Inc. Above summary is prepared for use solely by Broadcasting • Telecasting. No reproduction permitted. * "Commercial Units": Commercials are taken from the monitored reports published by Broadcast Advertisers Reports Inc. A "commercial unit" is defined as a commercial exposure of more than 10 seconds but usually not more than one minute in duration. Four "commercial units" are attributed to a 30-minute program, and in the same proportion for progams of other lengths. A "station identification" equals one-half "commercial unit." ** Audience ratings for television, both national and local, are those published by American Research Bureau Inc. Those for radio are the ratings of C. E. Hooper Inc. In the case of station breaks the average of the ratings for the preceding and following time periods is used wherever feasible; otherwise, the rating is that of either the preceding or following time period, normally the preceding. In the above summary, monitoring of networks for national report and Minneapolis-St. Paul for local report occurred Feb. 20-26, 1956. Page 50 • April 23, 1956 Broadcasting • Telecasting