How many people have seen The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up on Club illico? Is it more or less than for Fragments, the new Tou.tv series? Few in Quebec have answers to these questions, because the platforms keep these figures for themselves and disclose them as they see fit. Even producers say they are mostly kept in the dark.
“It’s really problematic. Because if we knew this information, the producers could at least adjust their content along the way. Audience figures also help to measure the value of a production. This is what allows us to sell a series abroad, for example,” says Hélène Messier, president and CEO of the Quebec Association for Media Production (AQPM).
The AQPM intends to make its claims known in the coming days during the hearings of the Canada Media Fund, one of the country’s largest donors to the television industry. According to Hélène Messier, funding should be conditional on the sharing of information on audiences by broadcasters. “The least we can do is that producers have access to this information. But I think it’s also important for the general public. Most programs are publicly funded. It’s part of the transparency you would expect from broadcasters,” she says.
Not like TV
In Canada, the firm Numeris analyzes the ratings on traditional TV every week thanks to its panel. She is able to estimate that one program attracted 500,000 viewers the previous week, while another attracted a million at the same time.
For on-demand listening platforms, which Numeris has been interested in since last year, it’s more complicated. This non-profit organization, funded by broadcasters, is able to find out how many people visit each of the major platforms, whether Quebec or foreign. It is also possible to estimate peak hours, the age of visitors and their mode of use (tablet, cell phone or computer).
Numeris cannot, however, accurately know what people watch on the Prime Video, Club illico, Apple TV and Crave platforms of this world. Impossible to know for example how many people went to watch The Caleb’s daughters since the mythical series is rebroadcast on Netflix.
“We don’t know what people are watching, but we can make assumptions. We play a lot with data. For example, if we see a peak in July on Netflix right after the release of the new season of Stranger Things, we can easily deduce that this is the cause of that”, explains Catherine Malo, vice-president of business development and marketing at Numeris.
Netflix gives in to advertisers
To have data as precise as for traditional television, pay platforms should agree to disclose certain information to Numeris. And there is hope, believes Catherine Malo.
Since launching its subscription package with ads, the American giant Netflix has been under pressure from advertisers to be more transparent and disclose the audience ratings of its various content. In October, Netflix agreed with BARB, the UK equivalent of Numeris, to now have its ratings calculated independently. The daily The world reported on Tuesday that discussions on this subject are also underway in France at the moment.
We don’t know what people are watching, but we can make assumptions
“If Netflix ever published the figures for its content, would the other platforms follow suit? Maybe. I think that at the moment everyone is looking at each other and waiting to see who is going to be the first to move, ”says Catherine Malo.
Netflix, like Canadian platforms for that matter, could also decide of its own accord to reveal to the general public the number of views for each of its content, without joining an independent organization, such as Numeris. This is already done on the YouTube platform, owned by Google, where you can see how many views each video has generated. Ditto for Spotify, which publishes the number of listeners per month for all artists.
For now, listening platforms seem reluctant to reveal their audience shares for strategic reasons, no matter how they do it. While Netflix is losing ground elsewhere in the world in the face of pressure from advertisers, Radio-Canada believes that it is not in the same situation, as there is no paid package with advertisements on Tou.tv’s Extra.
Quebecor (Club illico and Vrai) did not respond to our questions. Bell (Crave) and Netflix Canada declined our interview request.