The recent publication of the official press release from the Africascope study and that of the HACA on media audiences in Côte d'Ivoire has taught us what is already known to all and which is perpetuated from study to study: in French-speaking Africa, everyone watches TV, the Internet continues to grow, and radio is no longer the dominant medium.
Surprisingly, information about the performance of radio stations themselves is scarce:
- International French-language channels and stations: TV5 Monde, RFI, and France 24 have published press releases highlighting their performance.
- Global Africa Télésud, which has almost doubled its audience since André AGID's company acquired Télésud, also reported on its remarkable performance.
CANAL+ Advertising, despite being Africascope's main financial backer, has not provided any information on the performance of its channels, whether local or pan-African.
In Côte d'Ivoire, only the HACA is authorized to communicate, and the press release published is as general as that of Africascope; in particular, no data on channel audiences has yet been made public.
In Senegal, Cameroon, the DRC, and other countries studied by Africascope, there was also no trace of any press release from any channel.
Does this mean that audience data is useless since so few channels or stations use it publicly?
One could argue that audience data is essentially a management tool for broadcasters and a commercial asset for advertising agencies, and that for these two reasons it should not be made public.
However, audience data is not only used for commercial or programming purposes: it is also a means of observing, monitoring, and analyzing changes in the cultural practices of a country or region.
- How are traditional listening habits (8 p.m. news, morning radio, etc.) holding up or declining?
- What types of programs attract the most public interest (documentaries, news reports, sports, series, etc.)?
- What role do major sporting or political events play in people's lives?
- How fast is the shift to digital happening? Who benefits from it? Who is left out…
Audience data is not only used to offer programs that attract viewers and sell advertising space, it is also used to understand individuals' relationships with the media, to identify trends in the evolution of people's behavior towards the media, and as a tool for understanding the culture and developments of a society.
They don't just tell us "how many" people watched or listened, they help us understand "how" and "why" individuals consume media.
Journalists, sociologists, investors, and even the general public are interested in and concerned by these topics. Restricting access to this information too severely reduces the role of media audience measurement to its most trivial aspect.