The Federal Government has commenced the first phase of its new national television Audience Measurement System in Lagos, with selected households set to receive 36GB of data monthly for taking part in the programme.
The initiative, being implemented by the National Broadcasting Commission through the FreeTV platform, is aimed at improving the accuracy and reliability of television audience measurement in Nigeria.
The system was unveiled during a press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday.
The new technology will replace the traditional diary-based method of measuring television audiences with Peoplemeter devices capable of automatically recording viewing patterns in participating households.
Under the programme, selected homes will have Peoplemeter equipment and data-enabled routers installed. The devices will collect television viewing information and transmit the data securely to a central data centre for analysis.
Patrick Gomes, Chief Operating Officer of First Media and Entertainment Integrated Limited (FMEIL) GARB, the technical partner handling the deployment, said participating households would initially receive 36GB of data every month.
He said the monthly data incentive is currently valued at about N11,000 and is designed to support the internet needs of participating families.
Gomes also disclosed that participants would be eligible for additional quarterly incentives based on their level of compliance with the requirements of the audience measurement programme.
He explained that households that consistently comply with the programme’s requirements would receive higher quarterly incentives, while those with lower compliance would receive a corresponding proportion.
The Lagos rollout follows a technical testing exercise and a proof-of-concept pilot conducted in selected homes. The outcome of the pilot was presented to stakeholders in Abuja in the second quarter of 2024.
The households being recruited for the audience panel were selected from Nigeria’s first nationwide Establishment Survey, which was completed in the first half of 2023. The survey covered 60,000 households across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, including 7,000 households in Lagos.
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the initiative was part of efforts to modernise Nigeria’s broadcasting sector alongside the country’s Digital Switch-Over programme.
Idris, who was represented at the event by the Director-General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Olalekan Fadolapo, said credible audience measurement would help strengthen investor confidence, encourage the production of quality Nigerian content and create new opportunities across the media and creative industries.
He noted that accurate information on who watches particular programmes, what they watch and when they watch them would be valuable to broadcasters, advertisers, content producers, investors and regulators.
The Director-General of the NBC, Charles Ebuebu, described the rollout as a major development for Nigeria’s broadcasting industry.
According to him, the system will provide accurate and passive measurement of television consumption while helping to address longstanding concerns about transparency in the country’s broadcasting and advertising markets.
The Lagos deployment is the first phase of the nationwide rollout. The second phase is expected to cover Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano, while the third phase will extend the system to other major media markets across the country’s six geopolitical zones.
The AMS rollout comes after the launch of FreeTV, a national digital television platform introduced by the government in June.
FreeTV provides households with access to more than 100 television channels without monthly subscription fees and is part of Nigeria’s Digital Switch-Over programme, which is designed to facilitate the country’s transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting.
Households do not necessarily need to buy new television sets to access the service. Existing television sets can receive compatible digital broadcasts using DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 decoders, while some homes already using compatible free-to-air decoders may not require additional equipment.
Nigeria’s transition from analogue television is currently targeted for completion by the end of 2028.
The government expects the digital migration to create new commercial opportunities for broadcasters, content producers and other players in the media and entertainment sector, with the NBC estimating that the Digital Switch-Over programme could help unlock Nigeria’s N605.2 billion advertising market.
