Four terrestrial TV stations yesterday signed a deal with local TV ratings and research firm Broadcasters Market Research Co, ending AC Nielsen's decades-long monopoly on TV research in this country.
"It took us, the media industry, three years to plan for this local television ratings research firm," said Lee Ching-ping (李慶平), a Broadcasters Market Research board member.
"There was only one ratings firm around before, which was an
abnormal phenomenon in advertising and media industries," Lee said.
"As the four terrestrial television stations took the lead today to work with us, we hope cable and satellite stations will follow suit," Lee said.
The four stations are Taiwan Television, Chinese Television System (CTS), China TV and Formosa Television.
US-based AC Nielsen had dominated the TV research business in this country since 1982.
According to Broadcasters Market Research, TV stations began to question the accuracy of AC Nielsen's rating reports and were not pleased with the responses they received, prompting them to seek alternatives.
"It has been said that the media are partly responsible for the disorderly Taiwanese society we have today," said Teng Chang-fu (
"By having another TV ratings research firm, we hope to have more fair and transparent reports regarding the industry," Teng said.
Broadcasters Market Research was founded in 2001 and began operating last year. The company has adopted the latest technology from Video Research, a Japanese television-ratings research firm, and is funded by various Taiwanese media and research companies.
"Ratings are the most important factor for media personnel as they are what we look for first thing in the morning," said Soong Yu-min (
"We hope that by having competition in the ratings industry, there will be better programs and shows in the future," Soong said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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