MEDIAPULSE TV PANEL (TELECONTROL)
What is Telecontrol?
Telecontrol is an electronic people-meter for measuring TV usage in private households. Telecontrol is installed in carefully recruited households and connected to the TVs and Video Recorder and other TV applications in this household. Telecontrol is in operation in ten countries worldwide
Telecontrol was developed in the early eighties. In Switzerland and Germany It is in operation since 1985. Since than a total of approx. 42'000 Telecontrol meters were produced, adapting continuously to the technical advances in TV technology – e.g. Digital TV. The Swiss System began operation with 1’000 Telecontrol II people-meters. In 1988 the system was renewed with the Telecontrol V people meter, in 1995 with the Telecontrol VI. Since 1997 the newest system, the Telecontrol VII, has been gradually installed in the households of the Swiss TV panel. By end of 2002 approximately 90% of the housholds run under the type Telecontrol VII.
How does Telecontrol work?
People-meter
The Telecontrol people-meter is a sort of small computer connected to every TV and video player as well as other components in the panel households. Telecontrol has a remote control with eight push-buttons for individuals (for checking in and out) and six buttons for attributing grades of appreciation (between 1 and 6 as in Swiss schools) of the watched programs. The Telecontrol people-meter is also connected to the telephone system by modem. This way the recorded usage data is transferred to the institute.
In 30 second intervals during 24 hours a day Telecontrol thus measures every status of the households TV and/or video
- Watching TV programs
- Recording and re-playing video
- Teletext usage
- Video games
- Appreciation of TV programs (from very poor to excellent)
In the night all the data is automatically collected via modem by the central computer of the research institut IHA.GfK. The data is then calculated the next morning and ready for delivery to the clients (via online-software).
Enjoy a simulation of the Telecontrol people-meter here: Telecontrol
Mediapulse tv panel
The Mediapulse tv panel compromises today 1'918 households. In these households, standing for the universe of approx. 2.9 million Swiss TV households, the consumption of TV and Videos, Games and others is measured. The households are spread over the three linguistic regions (being representative for all three markets):
| German-speaking Switzerland: | 1'029 Households (2’254 Individuals 3+) |
| French-speaking Switzerland: | 619 Households (1’317 Individuals 3+) |
| Italian-speaking Switzerland: | 270 Households (589 Individuals 3+) |
Publica Data and the Telecontrol-System
Publica Data AG has contracts with 7 foreign TV stations (commercial windows), 2 Swiss special interest TV stations, 10 regional/local TV stations and SwissTXT covering measurement and delivery of Telecontrol data.
Publica Data provides the following services to its contracted stations:
- Surveillance/control of station-identification by Telcontrol (also differenciation commercial window / original program)
- Daily production of post-air protocols and integration in Telecontrol-System
- Surveillance of data-production
- Continuous delivery of data-analysis
- Preparation of the commercial break data for planning tools TC-Advertiser / MediaOptimizer
Further responsabilities of Publica Data:
- Development of analysis-tools together with clients, Mediapulse AG and IHA.GfK
- Publication of data together with Mediapulse AG
- Marketing of Telecontrol data to further client segments (advertising, consulting, press)
- International marketing of Telecontrol data from the Swiss system