UAE’s tview metering system passes latest audit

The UAE’s new TV ratings system, tview, has been approved for use by international auditors CESP, clearing the way for its adoption in the Gulf state. 

The audit report, which was shown to the media industry at an event hosted by the Media Zone Authority in Abu Dhabi, concluded that tview, which is a meter-based audience measurement system, had shown significant improvement over the last year.

Tview was initially set up in 2012 by Emirates Media Measurement Company (EMMC), a joint venture of some of the UAE’s leading media players. The system did not win universal approval, and an initial audit last year highlighted a number of areas that needed to be improved. In the past year, the operator of tview, Kantar Media, has worked with CESP and established a joint technical committee with industry stakeholders to plan and make the required improvements.

The audit found that the active participation of panel homes had improved from below 60% to nearly 77%, compared with an internationally recognised target of 85%. The audit found that around 90% of TV sets are being properly metered, up from 74% a year ago. Meanwhile, a new survey methodology used to gather data about the UAE population was adopted and successfully piloted during the year. This will now be rolled out on a larger scale.

“EMMC, Kantar Media and the Technical Committee have worked hard all year to make these improvements, and we will continue to do more to develop tview,” said EMMC general manager Christopher O’Hearn.

“We understand this is a significant and game-changing step for the industry but we have to catch up with the rest of the world. 78 countries have electronic TV measurement systems, some established for decades. If the television industry does not embrace it here then it will continue to be undervalued, and will suffer further as digital consumption and online viewing increases.”