Media research
Market and public opinion research often describes how a population behaves and highlights key trends in media consumption. Research is useful and valuable. It tells us things that help public debate, makes us aware of something important, gives innovators the inspiration they need, or draws attention to a dangerous trend.
Examples from research
1. Television audience measurement
Among the best known long-running research projects is the measurement of TV audiences using peoplemeters. Broadcasters judge how well programmes do by the ratings and shape their schedules accordingly: the ratings may decide whether they buy the broadcasting rights to a sports programme or an interesting film again. The price of advertising on commercial television also follows programme ratings. In the Czech Republic the research is carried out for the Association of Television Organisations (ATO) by Nielsen Admosphere on a carefully selected panel of respondents. Details of peoplemeter research can be found here and also here.
2. Radio listening and newspaper and magazine readership
Radio listening is long-running research conducted by telephone interviewing for the Association of Private Broadcasters (APSV) by the agencies STEM/MARK and Median. Press readership research is carried out for the Publishers’ Union and the Association of Media Agencies (ASMEA), again by Median and STEM/MARK; this regular study uses face-to-face interviewing with a share of online interviewing.
3. Media literacy of secondary school students and their attitudes to the media
This study looked at how well students find their way around the media, how they understand media messages, how they work with information and judge whether it is true; general trust in the media was tested as well. Median carried out the project in 2018 for One World in Schools (JSNS, an education programme of People in Need). The research showed that secondary school students have weak knowledge of the online environment, even though they get most of their news from it. They find it hard to assess a specific media message critically, are unsure which media are public service, and do not know who owns the commercial ones. The findings help further debate and the structuring of media education in schools. More information about the project is available here.
Median also carries out interesting research for the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences into reading and general skills among schoolchildren. The fourth wave has now been collected with the same pupils, which gives a unique picture of how their abilities develop over time. More information about this project is here.
4. Research on children’s reading
The study Readers and Reading 2018, carried out for the National Library by Nielsen Admosphere, found that 78% of the population are readers who had read at least one book in the previous year. It also found that 73% of parents and grandparents read to their children or grandchildren at least occasionally. Other interesting findings are here.
This long-running, repeated research produced the book Czech Children and Young People as Readers, which describes in more detail the relationship between reading and school performance. One of its co-authors is Hana Friedlaenderová, Senior Research & Insights Manager at Nielsen Admosphere.
