Audience Management.

Client & context

A TV broadcasting company commissioned us to build analytical software for its audience data. Programmers and advertisers needed to understand audience reach and how popular each channel was.

The challenge

Audience statistics are large and multi-dimensional - channels, time slots, demographics. Static reports made it slow to spot patterns. The client wanted an interactive way to explore the data that people outside the analytics team could use.

What we built

We built a data visualisation system on the D3.js library, which renders data with HTML, SVG and CSS:

• the system retrieves audience data from the database and runs the analytical operations client-side, so exploring is fast;
• results appear as interactive charts - pie charts, bubble diagrams and pyramid charts;
• users can filter by channel, period and audience segment.

Process & timeline

We prototyped the chart types with the client's analysts on real data before building the full system, to make sure each chart answered a question they actually ask. Delivery took 3 months.

Results

The Audience Management System makes reach and channel popularity easy to analyse and is used by TV programmers and advertisers.

Programmers and advertisers could explore reach and channel popularity themselves instead of waiting for static reports.

At our current rates, a build of this scope would cost about £12–28k — an estimate from the feature list, not the original invoice.

If we built it today

Today we would keep D3.js for the charts and add saved dashboards, scheduled reports by email and role-based access for advertisers and internal teams. A first release of a product like this typically takes 6–8 weeks; our rates start from £49/hour per developer, and £65–£70/hour for a full team with QA and product ownership. Discovery starts from £3,000.

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