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The KSA Television Audience Measurement (KSA-TAM) is the official source of television audience measurement in KSA. Commissioned by the Media Rating Company (MRC), Nielsen operates and manages the integrated television audience measurement system. It provides the viewership of video content, such as Free-To-Air TV and Pay TV channels, shown across traditional and digital platforms. KSA -TAM also covers video digital platform consumption. KSATAM is designed to help media industry players keep up with media convergence trends, the growth of the digital broadcast sector, and the evolution of television consumption habits at KSA. KSA TAM provides local and international industry stakeholders with a platform to review their strategic decisions and enable industry stakeholders to reach their target audiences based on a scientific and statistical approach.
No. All panel households are randomly selected following a pre-set criteria based on GASTAT. Panel controls are introduced to ensure that all households are equally likely to be selected as panel households and those panel households are always representative nationwide.
The ES is conducted as part of the initial phase of panel recruitment. It is a door-to-door survey covering a representative sample of 10,000 KSA
households, where panel households (TV and digital panel) are drawn from. Eligible households are subsequently invited to participate on the
KSA-TAM panel.
The ES is conducted in quarterly waves throughout the year to capture emerging viewership trends and changes in socio-demographic profile. This ensures that the panel remains current and reflective of viewership preferences, and also provides a steady flow of eligible households to maintain the panel. The sample size for the annual ES is 5,000 households (1,250 households per quarter).
Nielsen is a leading global measurement and data provider that leads the international TAM industry by measuring TV audiences across 40 markets worldwide. The company is committed to integrating the latest innovations in consumer electronics, ensuring it remains at the forefront of measuring audience behaviors. Our partnership with Nielsen will help us gain a deeper understanding of Saudi viewers’ preferences and deliver accurate data to facilitate effective and highly targeted campaigns.
A nationally representative panel of 2000 households forms the core TAM panel from 24 cities in KSA.
By participating in this project as a Household, you are reflecting on the quality of content and helping to understand what works and what doesn’t work as a program/content. You are also helping to bring the initiation and ownership of data back to KSA (the biggest market in the region) and helping the broadcasters and digital platforms to better understand what content to invest in.
By having proper and representative audience consumption data via television and digital platforms, industry players such as content makers, media owners, advertisers, and media agencies can make decisions about content that works best on a variety of platforms and devices. Audiences in KSA can also aspire to have access to higher quality content that entertains them.
No, more than 80 countries have a national TAM system, e.g. BARB in the UK and OzTAM in Australia, BARC in India, Nielsen's in the USA. KSA is the first country in the GCC to have a successful attempt at launching TAM system.
MRC’s TAM solution is the first in the Kingdom to include a digital measurement that captures OTT streaming services over home Wi-Fi, providing insights on viewing habits across both linear and digital services. It will also measure all in-home and out-of-home streaming across all devices and platforms in phase 2 of the project.
There are 3 ways Nielsen is capturing Digital data from platforms. Via the Streaming Meter, any content streamed from a digital platform to the TV set that is from one of the 150 channels being measured, will be reported as the Audience Measurement TAM data - thus 150 channels can be reported Digitally.
The Streaming Meter will also capture video viewing to Digital platforms that are not part of the 150 channels being measured, and this will be reported as time spent/share at a platform level, e.g. YouTube or Netflix. The number of Digital platforms included will be determined by the actual platform’s audiences in KSA are consuming video on.
The third Digital platform measurement is from Nielsen’s SDK, integrated on broadcaster and participating TV services online players & apps. We are working with the industry to understand which broadcasters & TV services will adopt this measurement approach, which will determine the number of Digital platforms included.
MRC collects and publishes transparent, industry-led data as part of KSA TAM. It is audited by 3M3A, which audits similar projects in more than ten other countries under the supervision of a technical committee representing key industry stakeholders.
MRC works closely with the Advertising Industry Board to ensure that KSA TAM reflects the needs of media owners, agencies, and advertisers and facilitates the continued growth of content development and media spend.
As part of the program, meters are currently being installed in homes across the Kingdom. The initial batch of data from the first 1,000 participating households will be made available during April 2022. The project is set to go fully live by July 2022 with data from 2,000 households.
The launch in 2022 is the first phase of the program. The second phase will include digital measurement and mapping of personal devices for diverse audience demographics.
