The Federal Government has commenced the first phase of its national Audience Measurement System (AMS) in Lagos, with selected households set to receive monthly 36GB data incentives for participating in the new television audience measurement programme.
The initiative, spearheaded by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) under the FreeTV brand, was announced at a press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday.
According to the Commission, the AMS is designed to replace Nigeria’s traditional diary-based television audience measurement system with Peoplemeter technology that automatically captures viewing patterns in participating households.
Under the programme, selected homes will have Peoplemeter devices and data-enabled routers installed to securely track television viewing and transmit the information daily to a central data centre.
What they are saying
Speaking during the briefing, the Minister of Information and National Orientiation, Mohammed Idris, said with the modernization of broadcasting through initiatives such as the Digital Switch Over, Nigeria is also building a modern and credible systems for understanding the audiences.
Incentives for households
Speaking on the initiative, Patrick Gomes, Chief Operating Officer of First Media and Entertainment Integrated Limited (FMEIL) GARB, the technical partner implementing the system, said participating households will initially receive 36GB of data monthly as an incentive.
He said the monthly incentive is currently valued at about N11,000 and is intended to cover the participating households’ browsing requirements.
Gomes disclosed that the programme will also introduce a quarterly incentive based on how consistently participating households comply with the requirements of the audience measurement system.
He explained that households with higher levels of compliance would receive higher quarterly incentives, while those with lower compliance would receive a corresponding proportion of the incentive.
According to him, the Lagos rollout follows a technical testing phase and a proof of concept pilot conducted in selected homes. The pilot results were presented to stakeholders in Abuja in the second quarter of 2024.
The households being recruited for the panel are being selected from Nigeria’s first nationwide Establishment Survey, which was completed in the first half of 2023.
The survey covered 60,000 households across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, including 7,000 households in Lagos.
Commenting on the initiative, Director General of the NBC, Charles Ebuebu, described the rollout as a major development for Nigeria’s broadcasting industry.
He said the system would provide accurate, passive tracking of audience consumption patterns while addressing longstanding challenges around transparency in the advertising and broadcasting markets.
Gomes noted that the Lagos deployment represents the first phase of the initiative, while the second phase will extend the system to Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano. The third phase is expected to cover other major media markets across the six geopolitical zones.
Get up to speed
The AMS rollout follows the launch of FreeTV, a national digital television platform in June this year.
Existing television sets can receive the service through compatible DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 decoders, while households already using compatible free-to-air decoders may not need additional equipment.
What you should know
Nigeria’s final transition away from analogue television remains targeted for completion by the end of 2028, with households expected to begin preparing by confirming decoder compatibility and adopting digital broadcasting services.
The transition could also unlock significant economic opportunities for broadcasters and content creators.
The National Broadcasting Commission recently disclosed that the Digital Switch-Over programme is expected to open up Nigeria’s N605.2 billion advertising market, creating new revenue opportunities across the media and entertainment value chain.
