Transparent numbers, real-time data, and complete consumption logs make audience surveys based on interviews, subject to human distortions, look ridiculous

Let’s get straight to the point: mass media that can deliver real-time, trustworthy, and efficient data holds the equivalent of refined gold, ready to use, with immediate value. There’s no waste in processing the raw state. How is this achieved? By relying on massive amounts of data that can be interpreted by models and qualified professionals, such as media consumption psychologists. It’s no coincidence that I’m halfway through this training: I want the technical foundation to translate this complexity and provide clients, TV networks, radio stations, and other outlets, with second-by-second insights into the impact of their actions and those of their competitors. This avoids costly mistakes and allows seizing opportunities when competitors are blind to these dynamics.

Streaming, as we know it, is already a massive source of data. It shows in real time what is being consumed, in what quantity, what becomes a trend almost instantly, and what quickly loses appeal. Yet, very little of this raw but precious information is used effectively. This gap is not unique to Brazil, worldwide, many companies are still unprepared to deploy strategies that expose, almost nakedly, what audiences chase, expect, and consume.

Today, there are already transmission systems with reliable counters that undermine outdated audience measurement methods, the kind still used to promote campaigns claiming that “research shows this medium is the most trusted and most listened to.” Nothing makes clearer how much the digital blow has hurt than these desperate assertions. We are approaching an era in which the giants of audience numbers will have to be more convincing: their reports will no longer be accepted as absolute truths just because they crown a certain radio or TV station.

And it’s not only radio or TV in this battle. Other forms of mass communication will also fight for their share, demanding reliable and consistent numbers. The outlets getting it right are those that don’t mind being recognized as convergent communication systems, where radio, TV, and the internet complement each other and reinforce one another.

The world has become too complex to fall asleep at the wheel. Even during downtime, a company needs people, perhaps in another time zone, awake and drawing lessons from the new trends shaping survival in the communication market. What’s truly under threat is not the media itself, but the outdated and persistent methods of audience measurement.

This practice of interviewing people and turning that into audience measurement has long been a joke, even among the companies that hire these research firms. Many noticed glaring discrepancies: broadcasters who, when comparing their actual streaming (audience logs), would laugh at the numbers presented by the institutes. Differences of 30, 50, even 100 times were not uncommon, utterly nonsensical figures that really deserve to be told in detail so we can all laugh together. In the end, some of these results feel more like they were conceived by rolling dice in a casino than through any serious measurement process.