Nick North, GfK NOP Media, UK

The major media business markets are all about audience research. After time spent working in different aspects of market research, Nick North, Joint Managing Director of GfK NOP Media in London, has made audience research the focus of his life’s work, championing the most effective type of research – online. Now, like pieces of a jigsaw, online panel surveys have been combined with the expertise of the BBC and the market research know-how of GfK to ensure customer satisfaction.

A philosopher in market research? Nick North, Joint Managing Director of GfK NOP Media in London, is a born philosopher. It was not until his father, a faculty head at Oxford University, outlined the likely job prospects for philosophy that Nick, who is 42 now, began to look for a more prudent career. As a philosopher specializing in logic, he found employment with a puzzle magazine, which in turn led to a position in New York, where he started to become involved in media, rather than writing about it. A foray into the international film business, when North sold films and TV series with sponsorship support in Russia, gave rise to a well-founded interest in media research, which was being demanded by the sponsors. “At the time, media research in Russia consisted of evaluating the number of letters sent in by readers”, smiles North, recalling the audience surveys of the 1980s.

From 1994 to 1999, Nick North worked as a freelancer in media research, setting up his own company which he then sold to a larger Finnish market research organization.

In 2003, North, who has two children, moved into audience research with GfK in England and established GfK Media with Tanya Koshechkina. From the beginning, audience research using new technologies was the core of the UK business, since GfK was already working for the Wireless Group at the time and using the innovative Radiocontrol system, which is worn on the wrist, like a watch, and collects data on the listening habits of radio audiences.

A year later, GfK was pitching against some of the best known market researchers in the UK for a BBC contract on the subject of Program Appreciation. “At the time of the pitch, we were still relatively unknown”, says North describing the position in 2004. “In those days, the BBC was still using the same method to measure audiences that it had for 40 years. This made sense in the early days of a handful of radio and TV stations. Programs were given a mark from 1 to 10 in the diary and this was a practical and useful system.”

Bringing quality into line with quantity

These days, however, the world of TV is much faster moving and quicker methods are needed to present the findings promptly. “The BBC wanted a system that brought the quality more into line with the quantity”, recalls North. As a public service broadcaster, the BBC is obliged to provide viewers with “valuable” information in order to be able to justify the TV license fee.

It was then that a very early form of GfK knowledge exchange took place. One evening, chatting by the pool during an international conference in Los Angeles, North met a GfK colleague from the Netherlands, who was already doing what the BBC was looking for: online panels and TV audience satisfaction measurement. The advantages were obvious. With the traditional diary method, the station had to wait around three weeks to receive the analysis in printed form, while the online panel was very fast. “You can ask viewers about the quality of a program today, prepare the analysis tomorrow and shortly afterwards the results are with the decision-makers”, summarizes North.

» The BBC has the expertise. What GfK brings to the table is its all-round global expertise, which facilitates the next part of the puzzle involving the online panel function. «

Long debate over online status

Of course there were some problems to be ironed out. After 40 years of relying on one method as the BBC had done, it was hard to change to something new, especially the online status. “The BBC represents the entire nation”, explains North, “but at the time, only 65% of the UK population had access to the internet.” There was long debate at meetings involving an exhaustive exchange of knowledge with colleagues from GfK in the Netherlands in order to clarify the points raised by the BBC before it was completely happy with the project.

“And the system works”, beams North. “People like to talk about what they watched on tv the night before. We don’t have to force anyone to take part in the panel, they are happy to do so voluntarily.”

Consequently, a large number of departments at the BBC now receive figures specific to their particular requirements and are able to respond promptly to the needs of their viewers. Take the news for example, says the canny North. “After the program, viewers are asked about the individual items in detail, such as what they found particularly interesting and what they wanted to know more about. We collate the data, produce a snapshot analysis and send this to the BBC by lunchtime, so that the information is available as an individual report ready for the two o’clock conference.” Speed like this is virtually unbeatable.

The example highlighted by Nick North is a perfect illustration of how the jigsaw comes together. “The BBC has the expertise in-house,” he explains. “That’s why we have to feed the data into their decision-making processes in every area of the business, from the editorial department to the strategic management echelons.” Both sides spared no effort in giving as many interested groups as possible access to the data and this is where the BBC Intranet came in useful. What GfK brings to the table is its all-round global expertise, which facilitates the next and critical part of the jigsaw: the online panel function and trailblazing survey management. GfK research now also extends to the bbc website, which is evaluated each year on the basis of 300,000 interviews.

A particularly exciting time

The future poses many challenges for market researchers with the advent of mobile TV, total digitization and new media. “This is a particularly exciting time”, says Londoner North confidently. And he still has a philosophical approach to the future: “We need to obtain better information without putting any greater burden on the viewers at the other end.”

GfK NOP Media, UK

• Established: GfK NOP Media was established in January 2006 and is an alliance of the former NOP Media and GfK Media UK. The company is part of GfK NOP, which commenced operating in the UK in September 2005.
  
  
• Employees: 14 permanent staff members
  
  
• Business division: Media
  GfK NOP Media offers information services for the classic media TV, radio and print as well as for the new digital media. The media division, which was originally part of the NOP Group, specializes in readership research for regional daily and weekly publications. The company also carries out custom research surveys for trade and consumer magazines, TV stations and Ofcom, the UK media regulatory authority.
  
  
• Clients: GfK NOP Media carried out 36,000 personal interviews for the Trinity Mirror publishing group in 2005. In the context of a large-scale survey over a period of several years commissioned by the BBC, the company surveys 15,000 individuals on acceptance of TV and radio programs. In 2006, the company obtained a contract for a similar study for the UK’s leading private commercial station, ITV, and it has also won a multi-year project from Digital UK to research the take-up of digital TV.