TVNZ’s dodgy stats

Throng blogs:

TVNZ claims that 60 Minutes had an average audience of 130,060 in April, quoting Nielsen TAM (5+).  We publish these same ratings each day on Throng, and based on the figures we have been sent, the average audience was approximately 257,000.  TVNZ’s figure is roughly half that!

The press release gets even more dramatic by saying 60 Minutes has lost “almost 300,000 viewers per week since February”.  Hold on a minute: that’s an awful lot of viewers to be losing.  With over 8 weeks in March and April, that would have given 60 Minutes over 2.4 million viewers in February – more than the total number of Kiwis watching the Royal Wedding!

“[60 Minutes] had an average of 422,120 viewers watching each week in February” is misleading as there was only one episode of show screened in February!  It was a special 30 minute Christchurch earthquake special on the day after the quake, so not surprising that it rated so highly.  

So TVNZ was comparing a one off special the day after the earthquake, with normal ratings for 60 minutes, and using it to try and con people that 60 Minutes had a plummeting audience.

Someone in One News should explain to TVNZ Marketing that dodgy press releases from the broadcaster undermine their trustworthiness as a new source.