Like at home, there are more OOH viewers during the traditional peak audience times of midday and prime time. However, the drop in the OOH television audience in the afternoon is less marked than in the home television audience.

In general, viewers watch the same programmes when on the move and at home. However, OOH viewers tend to prefer children/young people’s and sporting programmes. Sporting programmes – which are almost always watched live – are particularly suitable for OOH viewing.

When viewers watch the television outside of the home, they mostly choose to watch live programmes. Only 15–24-year-olds stand out by watching slightly more on demand television outside the home.

France is one of the world leaders in measuring out-of-home audiences

The OOH television measurement is the latest evolution of Médiamat, the television audience measurement carried out by Médiamétrie since 1989. Since the 31st of March 2020, each morning all television channels receive the total audience that has watched their programmes both out-of-home and on the move: in second homes, hotels, holiday rentals, bars, stations, airports, public places, cars, trains, buses, at parents’ and friends’ homes...The audience is measured on all screens – television, computers, smartphones, tablets – and regardless of whether the programme is watched live or on demand. Médiamétrie recently won the Gold Trophy in the Media Audience category for its OOH TV audience measurement system, at the “2021 Research & Innovation” Awards organised by Offremedia.

Laurence Deléchapt highlighted: “Since we integrated the out-of-home TV measurement into Médiamat, our audience measurement now covers an even wider scope. It is also much more representative of television viewing in France, particularly among young people who are the biggest consumers of television away from home”.

Today only Norway and Canada have a real OOH TV measurement with a portable audience meter. Norway uses the audience meter developed by Médiamétrie. Some countries measure the audience that watch television in their second homes, for example Germany, Sweden and Russia. In India, they measure the audience in restaurants where the public frequently watches television.

Two panels for measuring the television audience

The television audience measurement relies on two complementary panels. The Médiamat panel measures the audience watching the television at home. All active television sets in the home are taken into account and all people living in the home and over the age of 4 are counted. Viewers, and any possible guests, declare their presence in front of the television with a remote control.

A second panel measures the OOH audience thanks to an innovative Personal Portable Audience Measurement (PPAM). The panellists are equipped with a small box – a miniature audience meter the size of a watch developed by Médiamétrie – that accompanies them in their daily activities. This panel is made up of 4,500 people aged 15 and over that are equipped with a television.

The audience meter records the audience automatically thanks to the watermarking technology used. This technology is identical to that used for measuring the television audience at home. The microphone in the device records all the TV programmes watched.

A robust method for integrating audiences on a daily basis

To obtain the television audience regardless of the viewing location, a statistical merging method is used. It combines the television viewing measured at home with that recorded away from home by the panel wearing an audience meter. An algorithm allows Médiamétrie to associate a portable meter panellist with a Médiamat panellist – according to socio-demographic proximity and TV consumption criteria – and thus identify them as a OOH viewer.

This operation is done every day. The OOH audience ratings for guests already measured in the Médiamat is replaced by that of the portable meter panellists to avoid counting anything in double.

For Lorie Dudoignon, Director of Médiamétrie’s Statistics Department, “The challenge for this measurement was to come up with a robust, high-quality and fast method that would allow us to integrate the OOH audiences into the Médiamat ratings sent to clients each day.”

The methodology was submitted to the CESP (Centre d’Etudes des Supports de Publicité) who judged the approach to be well thought-out and the results to be consistent.

Laurence Deléchapt laid out the roadmap for the coming months: “This evolution of the benchmark measurement for the television is the first step in a daily television audience measurement in all locations and on all screens. Our aim is to supplement the measurement by taking into account the television watched online at home.”

Until then, the 4-screen television audience measurement is still relevant and will continue to be carried out alongside the Médiamat but will not be integrated into the reference measurement.