Broadcast Media Africa launches survey on the continent's audience measurement gaps
Benjamin Pius, CEO of Broadcast Media Africa, says the organisation's newly launched Advertising and Audience Currency Marketplace Africa State of Play survey will gather views from broadcasters, advertisers, agencies, publishers, streaming platforms, measurement and research organisations, technology providers, telecommunications companies and regulators across North, West, Central, East and Southern Africa. The questionnaire asks how audiences are currently measured, which currencies and metrics different players use, and how much confidence the industry has in those systems given fragmented methodologies and limited data availability. It also covers the growing role of first-party data, AI, automation, big data and cross-platform measurement, and gauges appetite for a more standardised, interoperable, pan-African audience currency. "Audience measurement is at the heart of how media is valued and how advertising investment is allocated," Pius said, adding that Africa's media environment is becoming increasingly fragmented.
Media buyers currently plan African campaigns against a patchwork of national and platform-specific metrics, which makes cross-market comparisons unreliable and complicates budget decisions between TV, streaming and digital. A pan-African standard, if the survey's findings lead to one, would give agencies a common basis for valuing inventory and reporting results to clients across multiple countries at once. BMA plans to publish benchmarks on measurement standards, data access and monetisation across the continent's media market, and agencies with African billings have an opening to shape those benchmarks by submitting input to the survey.