Game-changing papers at the 2017 asi International Conferences in Nice

This year saw the first presentation of an award for best paper at the asi International Radio & Audio Conference. An award has been presented over a number of years now at the International Television & Video conference, generously sponsored by RSMB in honour of the late, great Tony Twyman. As RSMB’s Managing Director Steve Wilcox pointed out, it seemed appropriate to introduce an award for Radio & Audio. Whilst Tony Twyman was enormously respected in the research community – especially the audience measurement community internationally – radio was very much his first love.

The Tony Twyman Award for best paper at the 2017 International Radio & Audio Conference in Nice, France, went to Lena Brun of Finnpanel in Finland and  Ricardo Gomez-Insausti of Numeris in Canada. Both teamed up to look at their shared successes – and challenges – in introducing online radio diaries. They also drew on data from RAJAR in the UK. The paper was not only insightful but a great example of collaboration across the asi community. See the presentation below, and you can access the deck here.

The best paper for Television & Video went to Brian Fuhrer of Nielsen, who achieved the triple crown of excellent content, engaging presentation style and timeliness. There has been much speculation about the likely size of audiences to SVOD services like Netflix and this paper finally lifted the lid. This was achieved not by claimed recall or an ad hoc survey but by using the US PeopleMeter panel itself, allowing a direct comparison using the exact same metrics. A comparison which in the case of Stranger Things (16 million viewers to one episode and rising) may have had the US broadcast networks wincing. At least they now know the size of the challenge. Returning to an earlier word – achievement – this paper felt like a real game changer. See the presentation below, and you can access the deck here.

As ever, the decision of the judges at the conferences in Nice this year was very difficult as the quality of the papers throughout was exceptional. We were helped, however, as although the judges’ decision was final, we did also sneak a look at the scores given in the app by delegates, so the winners were themselves the result of a hybrid fusion of qualitative opinion and ‘big data’.

You can read a summary of the 2017 asi International Conferences here.

Originally posted by asi
30th November 2017