News
December 2011
RSMB have further expanded their presence in the field of data integration with their appointment by the National Readership Survey to undertake regular fusions of NRS average print issue readership estimates and UKOM website usage data. RSMB have recently completed the development of bespoke methodology capable of accurately fusing these two disparate data sets. With the launch of ‘NRS Padd’ (Print and Digital Data) users will, for the first time, be able to analyse and understand the relationship between print titles and their online properties. The first release is scheduled for Quarter 1 2012 with reports thereafter produced by RSMB on a quarterly basis. The agreement will cover an initial three-year period.
November 2011
The asi European Television Symposium was held in Amsterdam, with RSMB once again sponsoring the Tony Twyman Award for the paper which best provided a greater understanding of television and its audiences. This year the award went to Matt O’Grady from The Nielsen Company, for an excellent paper which first assessed the current US marketplace before concentrating on the issue of content monetisation. Matt’s presentation, together with winning entries from previous years, can be found here asi Tony Twyman Awards.
October 2011
The IPA has confirmed the appointment of RSMB to provide the data integration element of their forthcoming TouchPoints project. TouchPoints 4 will provide an updated version of their cross-media planning database which links all major UK media currencies.
July 2011
RSMB were delighted to receive a second extension from RAJAR to the Radio industry research contract originally awarded in 2006. RSMB will continue to have responsibility for Quality Control together with Sampling, Weighting, Processing and Reporting. This extended contractual period will run until at least the end of Q1 2014.
March 2011
Several important management changes take place at the end of this month.
Roger Gane, RSMB’s Research Director for the last seven years, is retiring. Everyone at RSMB wishes him a very happy retirement.
David Harrison will join the company as Commercial Director from April, and will take on many of Roger’s current responsibilities. David has a long career in audience research, most recently as Director of Knowledge for (Channel) Five.
In addition RSMB has appointed Ross Wightman to a newly created role – Head of Business Development – Data Integration. Ross will join from GfK UK, prior to which he was Client Service Director of AGB NMR UK.
November 2010
At the 2010 asi Television Symposium the Tony Twyman Award was for the first time a ‘dead-heat’! The judges, including Roger Gane of RSMB, felt that both
Bernhard Engel’s presentation on ‘TV convergence’ and Tony Syfret’s comprehensive review of future advertising prospects made major contributions to
understanding the industry in which we work.
To see these presentations and the winning papers from previous years go to asi Tony Twyman Awards.
October 2010
In response to growing media industry interest in data fusion and other ways of integrating media audience data, RSMB is launching a dedicated media data fusion business. A news release on this development is available here: RSMBfusion.
January 2010
RSMB has been appointed by the IPA to undertake the data integration stage of TouchPoints 3. TouchPoints provides a cross-media planning database for all the UK’s major media currencies.
November 2009
The 2009 asi Tony Twyman Award was once again sponsored by RSMB and the judges were impressed with the high standard of papers at the Symposium, which was held in Istanbul. The award went to Jim Kite of Starcom Mediavest and Todd Juenger of TiVo for their paper which explored the opportunities to combine set top data with other data sources to improve targeting. The judges hope that this is a theme that will be developed at future asi Symposia.
June 2009
RSMB has been awarded a major media data integration project in Denmark. “TouchPoints Denmark” was commissioned by TNS Gallup Denmark in conjunction with a media owners committee. The project will link a specially commissioned “hub” survey with TV, radio, internet, readership and other currency data.
April 2009
RAJAR awarded RSMB an extension to the contract awarded in 2006. RSMB will now continue to have responsibility for quality control together with processing and reporting until at least the end of 2011.
November 2008
The 2008 asi Tony Twyman Award sponsored by RSMB at the Symposium in Lisbon went to Alan Wurtzel, President of NBC Universal Research. The judges unanimously chose Alan’s paper “The Billion Dollar Research Lab” as the one making the most contribution to the understanding of television audiences. It described NBC’s work in planning and analysing their research on the Beijing Olympics – the most viewed event in history.
January 2008
The IPA has awarded RSMB a contract for the data integration stage of its TouchPoints2 multimedia project. RSMB performed a similar role on the initial TouchPoints study which broke new ground in the provision of cross media comparisons and attracted widespread international interest.
January 2008
RSMB is delighted to announce the award of a new contract by BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board Ltd) for the UK television audience measurement (TAM) system to start in 2010. The contract has two phases:
- A set-up phase to establish the new system during 2008 and 2009
- An operating period running for a minimum of 6 years from January 2010
The BARB announcement confirming the award of the contract for Survey Design, Quality Control and Calculation Methodology to RSMB notes that the company will be taking an increasingly future-facing role to consider new televisual distribution methods. Although the remit of the new contract is broadly similar to the one it currently holds, the scope has been somewhat broadened to extend RSMB’s responsibilities in quality control and universe estimation.
Commenting on RSMB’s success, Managing Director Steve Wilcox said “BARB’s award of a third successive TAM contract to RSMB is tremendous news and confirmation of the company’s pre-eminent position in the design and quality control of audience measurement systems. I’m sure that RSMB’s continued involvement in the BARB service will provide both insight and stability to the measurement of audiences for the UK’s television industry”.
November 2007
RSMB sponsored the inaugural asi Tony Twyman Award for the paper which made ‘the best contribution to a greater understanding of the TV medium and its audiences’ at the asi European Television Symposium in Barcelona. The award went to Bas de Vos of SKO (which is responsible for television audience measurement in the Netherlands) and Frans Kok of Intomart GfK. The judges felt that this paper was especially invaluable in exploring both the potential and pitfalls of personal meters very honestly and directly.
At the same symposium, Debbie Hurley, RSMB’s Statistics and Quality Control Manager, presented a paper at the on ‘The Impact of Media Fragmentation on Campaign Sampling Efficiencies’. The paper showed that campaigns based on a large number of low rating spots can be planned with the same confidence as those using a smaller number of spots from mainstream channels with relatively high ratings.
May 2006
RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd) has appointed RSMB as one of its contractors for the new audience service commencing in 2007. In a break with the past RAJAR has decided to split the operation between two contractors.
RSMB will be responsible for sampling, weighting, processing and reporting and for overall quality control. RAJAR’s Managing Director, Sally de la Bedoyere said "In 15 years of serving BARB, RSMB has become a by-word for technical excellence and innovative thinking, and RAJAR is delighted to bring such skills and experience to bear on the design and implementation of the new contract."
As the complexity of radio broadcasting increases so do the challenges in providing reliable measurement of its audiences. Roger Gane, Research Director of RSMB commented "RSMB is delighted to have been awarded this important contract. We look forward to working with RAJAR and all the parties involved, to ensure that the new audience measurement service meets the needs of the radio industry."