SKO, Intomart GfK and Nedstat win Hans du Chatinier Award

Amsterdam, 28 may 2009 - The Dutch Audience Research Foundation (SKO), Intomart GfK and Nedstat have received the Hans du Chatinier Award for professionals at the MWG Annual Masters of Media Awards (AMMA) for their research on online television viewing behaviour. The independent jury, consisting of 6 experts from the media industry, concluded that the research anticipates on an important new development in television viewing, namely watching television on the internet.

Nedstat has been measuring the viewing of online TV programmes for SKO since July 2007. The daily reports, put together by Intomart GfK and publicly available on www.kijkonderzoek.nl, show the number of stream requests from the day of broadcasting until six days after. Combining these results with numbers on regular television viewing behaviour provides a more complete view of programme popularity and online behaviour of the Dutch audience.

The jury report assessed the research as a systematic investigation to which all parties involved in online television contributed from their own expertise: "The research delivers clear results: a definition of web-tv, an innovative measuring system and a useful way of reporting on online viewing behaviour together with regular television viewing behaviour."

The jury was also impressed with the presentation of the results: "Besides presenting the results to others in the profession, effort was made to inform the public. By using this broad approach the social relevance is outlined, namely exploring how consumers use the growing number of possibilities in watching television."

The prestigious Hans du Chatinier Award is a prize for special commercial communication research. The objective of the award is to encourage development in this area of market research and to expand, broaden and share information, whilst translating theoretical knowledge into a practical and applicable solution for effective communication. Every year, a specialist jury is formed for the Hans du Chatinier Award.

About the Dutch Audience Research Foundation
The Dutch Audience Research Foundation (Stichting KijkOnderzoek, SKO) was founded in 2000 and is responsible for changes and innovations in the method of viewing behaviour research and for monitoring and reporting the results. SKO itself does not perform research, it is done by research agencies Intomart GfK and MediaXim.

The data on programs and advertisements (MediaXim) combined with the data on viewing behaviour (Intomart GfK) form the so-called 'raw data'. SKO gives users of the raw data guidelines for calculating various results, such as percentage of viewers, market share and reach. Detailed guidelines of how ratings should be calculated must prevent that different results exist in the market. The most important television viewing results are published daily on www.kijkonderzoek.nl.

About Intomart GfK
Intomart GfK, known mostly for their media research in TV, radio and outdoor advertising, is one of the largest full service market research agencies in the Netherlands. Intomart GfK is part of the GfK group with GfK companies and partners in over 100 countries worldwide.

Aside from media research (including the national TV and radio audience research, internet reach research and print reach research) Intomart GfK is leading in policy and market research.