Coming to a small screen near you - the shows coming our way on TV and Netflix
So then, Steven Avery – is he guilty, or innocent, or what?
That’s a question that preoccupied many of us earlier this year, with Netflix documentary series ‘Making A Murder’ making waves on both sides of the Atlantic and turning viewers into amateur sleuths as they watched the macabre story in Manitowoc, Wisconsin unfold over 10 eye-popping episodes.
And yet, for a global smash, ‘MAM’ untroubled the TV ratings; why would it?
A Netflix special, its huge following was not reflected in our own TAM ratings system, although that may change.
According to Netflix Irish spokesperson: “Traditional ratings no longer matter in a world when success isn’t measured in a specific time slot.
They are especially irrelevant on Netflix’s subscription service as it doesn’t sell advertising.
The way we measure success is by subscriber numbers and hours people watch - and we release those figures quarterly.”
In fact, much as we don’t simply watch ‘the box’ any more, the ways in which our viewing choices are measured are likely to undergo a metamorphosis.
The process is already under way at the national broadcaster, according to Paul Loughrey, RTE’s Head of Audience Insights – itself a job title that has only been in existence for two years.
Paul has a handy acronym for RTE’s approach to gauging who is watching what, and when: ATAWAP. Any time, anywhere, any place.
“We are putting our content up on other platforms so people can consume the best parts,” he says, referring to the RTE Player in particular.
This includes putting up edited excerpts of top-rated shows, extras that didn’t make it onto screen, and in some cases, such as ‘Storyland’ or ‘The Couch’, programmes that go online first, and only later make it onto our tellies.
According to Paul, the penny dropped in Montrose with ‘Damo and Ivor’, the comedy sketch show compromising two Dublin stereotypes: the tracksuited and ‘tached Damo, and purveyor of upturned shirt collars, D4 muppet Ivor.
The sketches did not make tracks on TV until after RTE had conducted some research.
“We presumed young people in Cork wouldn’t like it because of the language and the fact that it is northside and southside Dublin, but when we spoke to them they said it’s the same as here [in Cork], just different accents,” Paul says.
“If it hadn’t been for that we might have missed out.”
RTE has its own volunteer viewers panel, which is run by an independent company.
The data that arises from the panel is weighted so that it is nationally representative, while Paul says social media, and in particular Twitter and Facebook, is monitored for reactions to certain programmes.
This might raise the hackles of some TV writers and producers – some fear a kind of mob rule online, where nuanced reactions are buried by instant opprobrium – but according to Paul, the online response is not seen as being of greater importance than the other metrics.
“I would have someone coming in, maybe a genre head, saying their programme smashed it on Twitter, but we need to do the proper analysis,” he says. “It’s almost that we have to be independent – what are the facts saying.”
He doesn’t believe or viewing habits have changed that dramatically, and a comparison with RTE schedules from previous years bear him out – the soaps, be it ‘Coronation St’, ‘Eastenders’, ‘Glenroe’ or ‘Fair City’, tend to dominate and today are still some of the most consumed content on the RTE Player.
“It’s how we’re consuming it that’s the big change,” he says.
While RTE has its own structure, from the people dispatched to watch new shows from other countries (“remember, they have to watch a lot of dross as well,” Paul says when asked if this is the best job in the country) to the viewing panel, the ratings overlords at Nielsen are also making changes for the future.
Nielsen has provided the Television Audience Measurement (TAM) system since 1996 and according to TAM Ireland CEO, Jill McGrath, “the major changes have been the move from paper-based surveys to electronic metering, and more recently the introduction of time-shifted viewing.”
The TAMs, a fixture of Irish life, are gathered via a panel of 1,050 households comprising more than 2,500 individuals, with all of their TV viewing measured by a meter attached to the TV sets in their home. Nielsen access the meter each night and download the viewing data, which is then weighted to reflect the total population.
“The basic method of metering peoples viewing has been around for many years, however, the measurement process is constantly being refined to ensure it reflects the ever changing TV viewing landscape,” Jill says.
“We carry out two household surveys every year, each with a sample of 4,250 households, and we ask them all about how they access TV content. The panel targets are updated twice a year and the installed panel must be reflective of this.
“We update the targets for the panel after every Establishment Survey, and the panel then needs to be balanced against these targets. This can mean removing some homes and replacing them with new homes that have the attributes we need.”
As she explains. the ratings are owned by all of the broadcasters - RTE, TV3, UTV, Ch 4, Sky, Viacom, Setanta and the advertising agencies – and so they all work together to ensure the measurement process is carried out in as fair and reflective a way as possible.
There’s never any friction and according to Jill, “from time to time we do get queries on certain trends but they can be explained by changing weather patterns, etc.”
There have been plenty of changes made in recent years, and more are to follow.
The likes of Breaking Bad may end up being shown on TG4, but only after the whole world – or so it seems – have binged on them online.
For TAM and Nielsen, capturing this is a work in progress.
“Currently the players and streaming content is not measured by TAM Ireland and the viewing to them is not included in the ratings,” Jill says.
“This is a very complex area and no European country has yet cracked it completely. We regularly meet with our counterparts in other countries to discuss what progress each country is making in this regard. It is something we would envisage doing in the future but it is some way off yet.
"We do capture viewing to broadcast players if it’s watched through the TV set. The availability of reverse EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) services will impact broadcast player usage.”
This backward EPG function would allow you to scroll back through your TV guide on your television so you could watch a programme you’ve missed – a move that could spell the death knell for the ‘record’ button but which has the advantage of making you feel like you can bend time to your will.
There’s been a lot of change in recent years reflecting increased content availability e.g. Video On Demand, catch up TV, OTT (delivery of media through the internet without the involvement of an operator) etc.
Equally the media owners have to adjust the rights they purchase to support the different platforms.
From a Nielsen perspective, we’re moving to Total Audience Measurement to capture viewing irrespective of the device or platform, and to ensure that we report comparable metrics so that broadcasters, advertisers and the agencies can understand the holistic reach of their content.”
Ratings, as far as Netflix is concerned, is based on its membership growth report - “75 million and counting” it said following the publication of its Q4 report for 2015.
The company said: “Our titles are watched on the go and at home on a wide range of devices, making measurement of the viewing of any given title difficult for third parties. Our members around the world continue to devote more time to Netflix, streaming 42.5 billion hours in 2015, up from 29 billion hours in 2014.”
This year Netflix plans to launch more than 600 hours of compared with 450 hours last year.
Here, both Jill and Paul agree that when it comes to what we watch, we have similar tastes to viewers in other countries.
“Looking at the top 20 for 2015, Ireland is probably similar to many other countries in the dominance of sport events in the top shows for the year,” Jill says.
“The unique one is The Late Late Toy Show, which has consistently ranked in the top programmes list for Ireland each year.”
Paul mentions virtual reality TV interaction as possibly another future development, but he’s in no doubt about the primacy of the box in the corner when it comes to how we watch.
“Live viewing still makes up the biggest proportion,” he says, “90% of our viewing is still live, especially on RTE One. We want to watch things together, or if we live alone, we want to be watching together with the rest of the nation.”
On RTÉ 2, this springtime effort hopes to reboot the dating show format, a format that has already worked overseas. Fly-on-the-wall, with food, filming took place in Dublin’s Gibson Hotel.
This week musician Bob Geldof focuses on his long-held admiration for WB Yeats in what RTÉ says is a landmark two-part series.
– another RTÉ offering this week, presented by former Conservative minister Michael Portillo and looking at how the British military and political classes reacted to the events of 1916.
The Rising with a twist. This March show on RTÉjr will see eight children will spend 24 hours in the lives of their ancestors in 1916, taking on 10 challenges typical for a 1916 child.
Late spring sees the singer and songwriter look back at the events that have shaped modern day Ireland.
wall-to-wall sport this summer, as Martin O’Neill’s men travel to France for the Euros and the Rio games get underway.
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The show based around everyone’s favourite evil US president returned this month. Other Netflix original series returning in 2016 include Marvel’s Daredevil, season 4 of Orange is the New Black, season 2 of Marco Polo and Narcos.
Next Class: are you old enough to remember Degrassi Junior High? Then dive back into what Netflix describes as “a pull-no-punches dramatic series” focusing on Generation Z. Other new programmes on Netflix this year include Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, Chelsea Does — a four-parter in which Chelsea Handler explores marriage, racism, Silicon Valley, and drugs — Flaked, the serio-comic story of Chip, a long-time resident of the insular world of Venice, California who falls for the object of his best friend’s fascination, and The Get Down, which will focus on 1970s New York City.
a 90-minute special which will premiere on Netflix this year.
Sword of Destiny, Special Correspondents, starring Ricky Gervais and Eric Bana; Jadotville, which depicts the 1961 siege of a 150-strong Irish UN battalion under Commander Patrick Quinlan (Jamie Dornan) by 3,000 Congolese troops led by French and Belgian mercenaries working for mining companies, and War Machine, a provocative satirical comedy from David Michod with Brad Pitt set to star in the leading role and inspired by bestseller The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan
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