The Authority has a duty, in the words of the Television Act, to make arrangements for ‘ascertaining the state of public opinion concerning the programmes … broadcast by the Authority’. This obligation is fulfilled in various ways through a systematic programme of audience research, which covers not only the measurement of the size of the audience to each programme, and the composition of the audience, but also research into the audience’s reactions, interests and needs, public opinion about the output as a whole and in its various aspects, and certain basic research problems. Close contact is also maintained with other broadcasting organizations and with bodies concerned with research into the mass media in this country and abroad.

Information about the size and composition of the audience is provided for ITV by an independent research organization, Audits of Great Britain Ltd (AGB) through the joint Industry Committee for Television Advertising Research (JICTAR) which is responsible for the service. Automatic electronic meters are attached to the television sets in a representative sample of 2,650 ITV homes throughout the United Kingdom. These meters record on a minute-to-minute basis whether the receiver is switched on, and if so to which station it is tuned. In addition, diaries are completed within each household showing for each quarter-hour period the details of the age, sex and other characteristics of those who were viewing. Used in conjunction with data from other surveys, this information allows statistically accurate estimates to be made of the size and composition of the audience to every programme in every area.

About 56 million people - over 98% of the total population - live within reach of transmissions from the ITA’s stations. Over 51 million people in seventeen million homes have sets able to receive ITV programmes. During the year ended July 1971, in homes which could receive both BBC and Independent Television, the set was switched on for an average of 4.7 hours per day; for 2.5 hours it was tuned to ITV and for 2.2 hours to BBC. The average ITV share of the total audience over this period was 54%.

Although it is necessary to know the size and make-up of the audience, both for the commercial operation of Independent Television and in order to understand public opinion concerning the programmes, this type of information alone is insufficient. The ITA therefore supplements audience measurement data with research from various sources usually specially commissioned projects from independent research organizations. For some years the Authority has obtained the opinions of a representative panel of viewers: in 1969-7o the panel was operated by a consortium of three research organizations, and during the past year this work has been carried out by Opinion Research Centre Ltd. The panel is a sample of over 500 adult viewers chosen by strict statistical procedures to be representative of all adult viewers in the London area, and each member regularly provides information, recorded in a specially designed diary, of how much he or she enjoyed the programmes which he or she had personally chosen to view.

When the data from the entire panel are processed, an average score or ‘Appreciation Index’ is calculated for each programme, which provides a measure of audience satisfaction with the programme. This Index is calculated not only for the audience as a whole but for men and women separately, for different age-groups and social classes. By comparing this type of information between programmes and between sub-groups of the population at the same time, and between programmes over successive periods, changes in audience preferences and the strengths and weaknesses (in terms of audience appreciation as distinct from audience size) can be assessed. Audience appreciation reports also provide information about the source of the audience for each programme. The proportions of the audience which joined the channel to view that programme and which were carried from the previous programme on the same channel are shown, as is also the proportion of the audience for the previous programme which failed to continue viewing on the channel. When necessary allowances are made for the time of day at which the programme is shown (since this will affect the proportions of the audience joining and switching-off), this information on ‘viewer origin’ provides further indications of audience reactions to programmes. The Authority makes the results of this continuous monitoring of the audience’s reactions to the output available to all the programme companies and regards this type of work as an important element of its total research programme.

At regular intervals the ITA also conducts surveys of public opinion about television broadcasts, carried out by normal sample survey methods. These surveys give indications of public attitudes towards the output as a whole, and towards its constituent parts (news, drama, documentaries, light entertainment, serials, etc.). They also help to identify any aspects of the output which may be causing public disquiet.

The most recent public opinion survey of this kind was undertaken in late March 1971. No substantial changes from previous similar surveys were found. The primary matters of public concern, as expressed by a representative national sample, remained scenes of explicit sex and bad language: less than 500 of the public referred to scenes of violence as material which they had seen which was distasteful to themselves, personally. Rather greater concern was shown about the showing of violence when young children might be watching: in this case portrayed violence was of greater concern than swearing and was mentioned by 16% of the public: but, as previously, the major concern was with the showing of material which was explicitly sexual. Eighty-six per cent of the public regarded ITV as politically impartial: and the vast majority of those who did not were of the opinion that the bias was in favour of their political opponents, of either main party. Only one person in ten could recall any instance of unfair coverage by ITV of any matter of social or industrial controversy, and no single ITV programme was identified as unfair by more than 1% of the total public.

Public opinion surveys of this kind provide a general over-all picture which it is necessary to supplement, on occasion, with more detailed studies of particular areas of programming. Such studies are useful not only as a measure of how the audience feels about what has already taken place in broadcasting, but to help with future programme planning. In the recent past the ITA has undertaken research into public attitudes towards programmes in the areas of news and current affairs, children’s programmes, sport, drama, religion, adult education and afternoon television. The detailed study of public attitudes undertaken for the 1968 Consultation on Religious Broadcasting at Canterbury was supplemented by a special survey in Northern Ireland conducted in conjunction with Ulster Television and the Churches in Northern Ireland and has been made available to the general public in the form of a book (Religion in Britain and Northern Ireland, Independent Television Publications, 1970, 37½P). The results of a survey in the area of adult education have also been made publicly available (Viewer Preferences in Adult Education, obtainable from the ITA).

Independent Television aims to provide a programme output which is both of high quality and balanced in respect of the different kinds of material which are transmitted. A wide variety of viewing material is available for all tastes, and it is therefore a matter of interest to the Authority to know to what extent and in what way the viewer exercises his choice in deciding his pattern of viewing. Part of the ITA’s research effort is therefore devoted to examining the effect of different programme and scheduling decisions in their influence on viewing patterns. This is investigated by systematic and careful analysis of the audience measurement data, and also by special studies of changes in viewing behaviour which are associated with events of unusual interest.

The Authority maintains close contact with organizations which are concerned with research into the effects of mass media. It was the ITA’s financial grant of £250,000 in 1963 to the Television Research Committee which led to the establishment of the Centre of Mass Communication Research at Leicester University. The studies which have been undertaken and published by the Centre have been carefully considered by the Authority, particularly with reference to its responsibilities in the area of the control of violence on the screen.

Technical liaison on audience research matters takes place on a continuous basis with the research departments of other broadcasting bodies in Europe and elsewhere, and regular meetings are held at which exchange of information on research findings and technical developments takes place.

Meeting the needs of the programme planners, as well as the buyers and sellers of television advertising time, in measuring the viewing behaviour of some seventeen million family audiences is the industry body known as JICTAR. JICTAR (the Joint Industry Committee for Television Advertising Research) represents three bodies: the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers Ltd (ISBA), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and the Independent Television Companies Association Ltd (ITCA). Since 3o July 1968, when the new programme contracts came into force, the research data for JICTAR has been prepared by Audits of Great Britain Ltd (AGB) at Audit House, the research centre at Eastcote, Middlesex.

The service is based upon panels which are representative of ITV homes in each of the areas defined on the BBTA (British Bureau of Television Advertising) regional maps. These panels are selected, maintained and revised on the basis of large ‘random sample’ establishment surveys carried out in each area each year. Panel selection is determined by television reception characteristics, geographical location, demographic features and the predicted weight of viewing. In the London area alone, the viewing characteristics of some 350 households, representing 990 individuals, are measured on a minute-by-minute basis, while on a national scale (excluding the Channel Islands) the panel comprises 2,650 households and 7,790 individuals.

For the greatest possible accuracy, some six different types of information have to be merged to produce the weekly reports for subscribers.

These are:

1. The statistics and characteristics of each household recorded on a master file.
   
2. The amount of viewing, and to which channel, in every home as recorded on the SETmeter, the sophisticated electronic device developed by AGB.
   
3. A record of who in each family is watching and when, determined by SET diaries, submitted each week by the housewife.
   
4. A post-transmission programme log from each of the ITV companies and the BBC to determine the exact timing of the programme schedule transmitted each day.
   
5. A commercial log from each of the ITV companies giving the time and nature of every commercial transmitted.
   
6. A report of the current advertising rates in force at the time of transmission of each commercial.
   

At Audit House, the week runs from Monday to Sunday and the whole process of audience measurement starts on Monday morning when the housewife recovers the tape from the SETmeter and, together with the individual viewing diaries, posts it to AGB. Ninety per cent arrive safely by Tuesday morning, when the work of sorting the tapes and viewing diaries begins and the information is booked in by a carded system. The next stage in the operation is to translate the information on the tape into special punched paper tape capable of being read by the computer, a Honeywell 1200. This is done on an ‘Encoder’.

The viewing diaries, completed on a quarter-hour basis by each member of the household panel and any guests, are similarly transferred on punched paper tape by means of a ‘Lector’. Information from the programme logs of each of the ITV companies is then coded and put on to punched cards.

By Wednesday night, all of the requisite information is available in a form suitable for the computer to digest and the process of feeding the Honeywell commences.

Thursday morning sees the computer drawing graphs, by means of an attachment called ‘Calcomp’, of the minute-by-minute audience levels to ITV and BBC for each day for each ITV region. The computer also produces columns of viewing and cost information and these print-outs are pasted-up, checked and photographed before being printed on one of the eight ‘Multilith’ machines at Audit House.

The last stage in the process is the collating and packing of individual reports prior to despatching them to subscribers on the Friday evening.

The audience share figures quoted by AGB on behalf of JICTAR and the figures quoted by the BBC Audience Research Department are often dissimilar and apparently incompatible. Confusion arises from the fact that both sets of findings are expressed simply as percentage audience shares and, in consequence, are taken to be widely differing answers to the same question. In reality, both organizations are providing answers to two differing questions. The BBC provides ‘percentage audience shares’ in terms of the average individual, whilst AGB provides ‘percentage audience shares’ in terms of the average households viewing.

Further, the JICTAR sample is confined to households with multi-channel receivers and excludes those households which are considered to be incapable of receiving ITV programmes reliably, whereas the BBC embraces the whole population (excluding children under 5), admitting anyone whether he has an ITV/BBC television set, a BBC only television set, or neither.