ARMA changes the data provider for TV ratings

• Kantar Media Audiences will provide ratings between 2012 and 2015

• GfK, the company that currently measures TV ratings: "Continuity of service insures data stability, whereas changing the provider can, in some cases, lead to dramatic changes in ratings"

The company Kantar Media Audiences will provide the measuring of TV ratings between 2012 and 2015. The decision was made in the final session of the Joint Commission (COMPAR) for appointing the National Service for the Measuring of TV ratings, according to a joint press release by the Romanian Association for Measuring Ratings (ARMA) and to the National Council for Audio and Visual Media. Between 2008 and 2012, TV ratings data has been provided by GfK Romania, based on a contract which was worth approximately 8 million Euros.

The managing director of GfK România, Andi Dumitrescu, said: "We are surprised by the decision of the ARMA to change the data provider. The lack of any discussions between the national supervisory institution and us is a situation that"s unique in any of the member countries of the EU. In all those countries, the national regulator is interested in data accuracy and in the continuity of the service. This continuity ensures data stability, whereas in some cases, changing the provider can lead to dramatic changes in ratings".

Andi Dumitrescu also says that the results of the two audits requested by the ARMA and made by two independent companies well known on the media market have certified that the system used by GfK provides valid and reliable ratings data: "The most recent audit, made in March 2010, is one of the best that GfK received in any of the countries in which it is present".

The manager of GfK states that the company he leads has adapted its services to the innovations which have appeared on the market, and has answered any major change which appeared over the past few years, such as the switch to digital and the development of the DTH, even though these adaptations have involved additional costs. Andi Dumitrescu said: "The decision of the ARMA is even more surprising for us because throughout these years we have successfully overcome multiple challenges, some of them generated by the changes in the market, and others generated by the complexity of the service in itself. The representatives of the ARMA showed absolutely no interest in the continuity of the service, nor did they invite us to have a discussion on this matter. The technical proposal for this technical auction was based on the expertise that GfK had in countries such as Austria or Germany which have already gone through the switch to digital. We have proposed a viable suggestion, tested, with an optimum cost. In the technical suggestion we have proposed stability and continuity of the panel and we don"t see the reason of the ARMA to make this change. In such a dynamic context, changing the provider involves a high degree of risk for the market players, which have a direct interest in reviewing their own evolution, as well as in tracing coherent consumption trends".

Kantar Media, formerly known as TNS, is the company that provided, together with AGB, the TV ratings data before GfK. Kantar Media is part of the Kantar Group, the market research division of the WPP group. WPP has acquired the TNS market research company in October 2008, in a deal worth 2.14 billion Euros.