East Euro ad sales house Atmedia Group, Nielsen Audience Measurement and cable platform UPC Poland have launched a new television viewing measurement tool for Poland.

SpotLight offers minute-by-minute monitoring of the behaviour and opinions of 12,000 Polish viewers, giving analysis of programme and commercial ratings among pay-TV viewers on the UPC platform.

The new ratings survey will be the largest in Poland and one of the largest in Europe, according to Atmedia, and will be based on viewing data from set-top boxes in 5,000 Polish TV households. Atmedia said this is three times the sample size of existing Polish TV surveys.

The Polish market has in recent years seen the number of channels increasing from 35 to over 200 and the share of viewing for terrestrial Polish TV stations decreasing from 76% in 2004 to 54% in 2012.

The resulting fragmentation of the audience has made existing Polish television surveys “distorted and unrepresentative,” added the Chellomedia-media owned sales company, and advertisers now demand better metrics. “Launching SpotLight means we will be able to monitor viewer behaviour at a much more detailed level,” said Marcin Boroszko, CEO of Atmedia.

“Previously, the sample in the Polish survey was too small to provide reliable insight into viewing trends, so we have launched this new ratings panel to meet demand. Brands will be able to target their campaigns to specific audiences, which is excellent news for both our viewers and also for advertisers. This is great news for everyone in the Polish television market.”