01 October 2015

Singapore, 1 October 2015 – Recognising the industry’s need to better understand pay TV viewing and its reach, Singapore’s largest pay TV operator StarHub has partnered leading global information and measurement company Nielsen to launch StarHub SmarTAM, Singapore’s first Television Audience Measurement system using Return Path Data (RPD) technology. StarHub has also commissioned Nielsen to support the subscription and sales of SmarTAM data.

Harvesting RPD from StarHub’s two-way digital set-top boxes in 545,000 homes and applying Nielsen’s proprietary research for TV viewership measurement, StarHub SmarTAM offers advertisers, advertising media buyers, and content providers granular insight into what StarHub TV households and individuals are watching.

The TV audience measurement system tracks both real-time and time-shift viewing of TV content and advertising spots across more than 200 StarHub TV channels. 5,000 StarHub TV homes have been carefully selected to be statistically representative of StarHub TV households in Singapore, providing the industry-largest viewer panel that produces accurate data on the viewing behaviour of pay TV channels.

StarHub SmarTAM has the ability to provide highly accurate and dynamic audience segmentation, track specific media consumption habits and facilitate advertising campaign retargeting beyond TV in real-time. These insights can help advertisers and content partners make better informed decisions about creating and scheduling content or advertising campaigns effectively. It also allows the pay TV operator to perform day-to-day monitoring and planning of its channels and programmes as well as creating relevant pay TV packages.

“TV viewing behaviour in recent years has drastically changed, and StarHub saw the need for a big data driven system to generate more accurate and in-depth audience viewership analysis for ourselves and our clients. That was why we developed StarHub SmarTAM, in partnership with Nielsen,” said Ms Germaine Ng Ferguson, General Manager of Integrated Solutions & Analysis at StarHub.

“Particularly for our clients who are advertisers and advertising media buyers, StarHub, with the use of multiple big data sources now offers greater smart targeting capabilities to engage their customers cross platforms, whether through mobile apps, web advertising banners, TV spots or electronic direct mailers, to help them drive better results for their campaigns,” Ms Ng Ferguson added.

“We are delighted to support StarHub in launching this new service,” said Ms Rebecca Tan, Managing Director for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, Nielsen Media. “Audience viewing consumption and behaviour are constantly evolving and we are dedicated to provide more granular visibility and greater insights of local consumers to their advertising clients.”

StarHub SmarTAM was unveiled to a business audience comprising more than 150 advertisers and partners at the launch event at Red Dot Design Museum on 30 September 2015.