New SAARF TAMS universe includes TopTV

While at first glance, the new figures may not appear that much higher - from 10 650 617 up to 10 689 640 - the new TAMS universe is in fact significantly bigger considering it no longer includes PVR households.

"In the last universe, we included over 356 000 PVR households, which contributed to viewing data for satellite TV," says Dr Tiffany Tracey, SAARF's senior technical support executive. "When we tried to include PVR data together with the universe update, the changes were too great. The TAMS Council therefore, made a decision to remove PVR households from the universe until we can determine exactly how PVR viewing behaviour affects the TAMS data."

Tracey explains that the new universe has therefore grown by over 397 000 households, due to factors such as more TV sets in rural areas, with growth particularly in the Eastern Cape and in LSM 1-4.

The new satellite operator's data will only be released as a collective figure however. "The TopTV base is still too small to allow for the release of viewing data for separate channels," says Tracey.

The following tables show the differences between the current TAMS® adult universe (2010A) and the universe that will be implemented in August 2011 (2010B).

Tables

Updating the universe regularly, ensures that the TAMS data remains up to date with changes happening in the TV arena, c brought about by the constant addition of new households to the TV-viewing population, the advent of new pay-tv providers and the move to Pay TV.