Canada’s Audience Massage: Audience Research and TV Policy Development, 1980–2010

In Canada, audience research has been a useful link between the needs and wants of audiences and the type of television content they receive; this link is made manifest in part by approximately $200 million (Cdn.) invested in research as part of the $20 billion-plus media industry.1 Canadian media and advertising firms employ precise social scientific methods and the latest tools to ensure ever-more accurate measurement of media behaviour and of public opinion. Canada was among the first to adopt the Portable Peoplemeter (PPM), developed by Arbitron in the United States but extensively tested for the first time in Montreal, ten years ago (Savage, 2006). Canadian citizens, governments and corporations have been among the most eager in the world to adopt new communication technologies: in the past five years, Canadians have embraced the web 2.0 environment — including interactive digital media production and social networking.2 All of which is meant to put Canadian audiences at the centre of media production and distribution, so that programming can be edited and created in a fashion more reflective of the audience’s identity and preoccupations.