Minutes
of 17th (Extraordinary) Meeting
of the Audience Research Methodology Group (ARM)
CESP / Paris, 14 October 1999
Present: Chairman:
Gabe SAMUELS, /ARF
Giovanni FABRIS / WFA
Ursula WANGARD / EAAA
Jane PERRY / EAAA
Vittorio BOSSI / EGTA
Emmanuel FRAISSE / EMRO
Tony TWYMAN / ESOMAR
Wim BEKKERS / GEAR
Heikki KASARI / GEAR
Secretary: Paolo BALDI / EBU
Evelyn TAJETTI / EBU
Excused: Barry KIEFL / CARF
Dieter K. MÜLLER / EGTA
Jürgen WIEGAND / EMRO
Caroline COBLENTZ / PETV
Action
GS
- Minutes of the 16th Plenary Meeting (reviewed by GS)
The Minutes of the ARM Boston meeting held in June ’99 were approved. Gabe stressed the fact that attendance at the Boston meeting was good and that the ARM group has now become in deep need of a more structured organisation on a world-wide level. It has also been agreed that the ARM group is an English-speaking group.
Gabe informed the group of a small but important meeting to be held at the MIT Media Lab with Chief Engineers from top companies in the world (i.e. BBC and others) to get an idea on short-term — 3 to 6Y ahead max — likely technical scenarios. The main focus of the MIT meeting (to be held on 18 Jan. 2000) is to see how TV is going to evolve. Moreover tests will be conducted in "lead-users" homes. Feedback is expected around mid-Feb. /March 2000. The results of such a meeting/research will be made available to the ARM group only in due time.
Questions were raised as to whether the GGTAM Guidelines should be enforced in a more definite way even though the published guidelines were intentionally left "loose" to give some leeway to organisations. HK mentioned that in the Auditing world, the GGTAM may not actually be useful.
GS stressed that an update on the Radio Harmonisation Guidelines should be undertaken at some point.
- GGTAM Progress Report (presented by Evelyn)
2.1 Update on GGTAM orders: so far most orders are from European organizations, except for 3 South America, 2 North America, 1 Australia, 1 Hong Kong. Considering this result was achieved with no specific marketing, we can easily expect a high level of interest once the targeted marketing through Peter Menneer’s list will have been put in place.
Follow-up of sales as of date of meeting
Printed brochures Language Sold
1000 English 911
520 Spanish 23
100 German 55
a) Order processing: these first sales results are also due to a quick reply by EBU/SIS once the order is placed either through e-mail or fax. The quick order processing and mailing have resulted in some cases in a second larger order from the same organizations. But this also proves that the brochure was first being "tested" and then considered interesting enough to be distributed to colleagues around.
b) GGTAM French version: Considering the low level of French GGTAM pre-orders (only 1 at the time of meeting) and the low level of need for a French translation coming from French-speaking organizations such as EMRO, it has been decided not to go ahead with the French translation.
2.2 Update on direct costs in CHF: Costs shown of CHF 101’597.- include the consultant’s fees & expenses since 1997 up to date, printing costs of GGTAM (all languages incl.) up to date, and EBU/SIS staff travel & expenses. We note that ~65% of the costs is made of the consultant’s fees while the actual printing costs has already been recovered by the "pre-marketing" sale of brochures (25% of total costs).
a) Update on future estimated costs in CHF by end ’99: 1 more invoice expected from consultant for ~CHF 2’500.-, plus about CHF 3’000.- min. for the printing of the GGTAM Executive Summary and the Press Release.
2.3 Update on translations/printing: since English is the ARM group’s language, it has been decided that English will be the legal reference language for all documents published by the ARM group as of the upcoming Turkish version. Moreover, GF’s idea of publishing the English version together with the other language in the same publication was accepted in order to ensure the spirit of the original publication is kept in line. It has also been decided that — in as of the Turkish version - a legal footnote would be printed describing the English version as the sole reference of legal value.
Languages Current status
- Korean done & printed by July 99
- Spanish done & printed by 20 August 99
- German done & printed by 30 December 99
- French OK, decided no translation to be done
- Turkish OK decided, to propose same royalty payment as Korean (CHF 3’300.-)
- GGTAM Marketing: It is interesting to see that without the help of a press release nor a targeted marketing towards various organizations done yet, the return on investment is already up to 25%.
a) Executive Summary: it has been decided that it should be printed as is on glossy paper with the same look as that of the GGTAM cover. The footnote showing where the Guidelines are available from will be moved to the end of the document. The document should be made available on all ARM members’ Internet site once EBU/SIS is done with the publishing/printing.
b) Press Release: it has been decided that it should be printed with a few changes, i.e. in the title the word Group will be replaced by Initiative, the document shall not be printed on EBU’s letterhead paper, various languages in which the brochure is available must be shown, an ARM logo should be created. The document should be made available on all ARM members’ Internet site once EBU/SIS is done with the publishing/printing.
NB: If feasible to EBU/SIS, deadline for a) & b) above is set to end October for Firenze meeting (JP & TT).
- EBU is to check on the creation of ARM logo and submit it to the group’s approval considering the legal matters that will have arisen by then.
Action
GS
ET
Action
ET
ET
ET/PB
ET
- ARM Organisation & Statutes
PB stressed the point that it was time for the ARM Group to have a better organisation that would be more in line with the world-wide image it is trying to achieve. Mutual advantages (ARM and EBU) for having a formal — but not necessarily heavy — organisation are the following:
- Adopt transparent membership criteria
- Adopt a clear decision making process
- Introduce cost-sharing mechanisms
- Introduce accountability principles (for EBU members)
- Mission Statement:
- Membership:
GS based the current mission statement on Peter Menneer’s 1994 version, adding "electronic media" to it. Everyone agreed.
It has been decided that as of this meeting, no other Founding members (as listed in statutes) may be accepted as such. Future members will be called Sponsoring members or Associate members depending on their statutes within ARM. The following definitions have been agreed and should be integrated in the current statutes:
- Definition of a member: a member is an organization represented by at least one person and/or maximum 3 of that organization. However, a person working for research suppliers is not eligible to be a representative or an alternate representative.
- Deadline to submit membership: it has been agreed that a new membership must be submitted to the ARM Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Executive Committee 60 days prior to the annual ARM meeting. This stands as a mandatory rule. New memberships will be therefore examined once a year and voted upon at the annual meeting.
- Acceptation of new members:
- acceptation is validated if there is a 2/3 positive majority. Should just one veto be expressed, it will automatically deny the membership for that year.
- Candidate members who have been denied membership one year, may re-apply the next year.
- Membership fees: all memberships are subject to annual dues of USD 5’000.- unless specifically exempted by the ARM Group at the annual meeting. These fees will serve to pay for administrative tasks for ARM Group (i.e. evaluation of GGTAM brochure) or consultants’ fees for example.
- Specific projects: they will be decided upon at the annual meeting and members should be ready to pledge between USD 1’200-2’000 to help projects move on.
3.2.1 Modifications in current statutes
The following modifications have been agreed upon:
§2. ………………..to any bona-fide trade or professional meeting ……………
§2.2 ………………of electronic media research should be relevant to its primary goals.
§2.4 is added as It shall not be an Associate representing a research suppliers exclusively.
§4.1 Sponsoring members …………. Financial subscription of USD 5’000.-.*
§4.1. & § 4.2 are switched with one another.
§4.3 add Associate members are not allowed to vote.
*NB: At least 4 ARM current members already agreed to pledge USD 5’000.- (EBU/P. Baldi, ARF/G. Samuels, GEAR/H. Kasari, EAAA/U. Wangard).
The ARM Mission Statutes shall remain basically the same except for changes mentioned above. However, minds should remain open considering that future projects may include other media: in this case, these statutes would also be acceptable.
- Ratification of the ARM Statutes shall be done and approved through e-mail.
- Management
It has been decided that the management of the ARM Group shall be formed of an Executive Committee made of a Chairman/woman, a Vice-Chairman/woman, a Secretary and two other members preferably chosen amongst the Founding members.
It has been agreed that the Chairman/woman and Vice-Chairman/woman are elected for a two-year term and that the Vice-Chairman will succeed the Chairman/woman.
There should always be at least 5 persons in the pipeline.
Extraordinary vote may happen via e-mail or teleconference.
The Executive Committee’s basic tasks have defined as such:
- Administrative tasks (update of members list, organisational matters)
- Development (preparation of meetings, supervision of projects, user-pay projects).
- Budget planning and submit the budget to the ARM Group’s approval at the annual meeting.*
*NB: All countries in which Founding members are located will have to check with their respective legal departments on the set-up of an account for treasury matters.
GS
Action
GS
Action
GS
PB/PM
- ARM Future Activity Plan
a) GGTAM Marketing & Evaluation
A quick questionnaire shall be drafted by GS and sent via e-mail for approval. The questionnaire will be then sent to organisations which ordered the GGTAM brochures as per ET’s Sales Tracking table.
GF & GS will present jointly the GGTAM at the ESOMAR TV Symposium in Miami in May 2000. PB said that the efforts of promotion should be recorded by Peter Menneer (i.e. when going to a conference in foreign countries or locally).
b) Digital TV
WB said that ARM should monitor new methods of measurement of digital TV. GF thought ARM group should also explore future technologies. GS agreed but expenses run quite high unfortunately, so already existing things should be considered first. Advice should be taken from engineers first, then producers, then viewers.
It was decided that a working group should be nominated to work on Digital TV and it will keep gathering info on a regular basis. Group’s Volunteers are: U. Wangard, D. Mueller, G. Fabris, T. Twyman, H. Kasari, G. Samuels who will also talk to J. Wiegand, B. Glock. This group will start to work through e-mail and will start by drafting a plan.
Wim Bekkers informed the group that he will be leaving his current position with NOS as of 1 December 1999. We wish him the very best in future endeavours and warmly thank him for his valuable input all along his participation to the ARM Group.
- ARM Executive Committee (Chairman: G. Samuels, Vice-Chairman ad-interim: G. Fabris, Secretary: P. Baldi, plus 2 other members) will meet on Monday 13 December 1999 in London. Location to be defined later on.
- ARM Plenary Meeting will meet on Thursday 9 March 2000 at the Hilton Hotel in New York at the kind invitation of ARF (G. Samuels) on the occasion of the Annual ARF Convention to be held 6-8 March 2000 at the same place.
