Key Performance Indicators
Public Broadcasters - International Benchmarking Group
by Andrew Cavenett (Head of Performance Measurement, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is committed to ensuring that the Corporation reviews its key areas and operations with the intention of enhancing operational efficiency and accountability, not only to improve Corporate Governance, but also to improve internal management efficiency.
To support this commitment, the ABC set up a specialist unit (Performance Measurement) in November 2000, to conduct performance measurement analysis and reporting, international and domesticbenchmarking, and efficiency and productivity reviews for the Corporation.
The unit is responsible for the ongoing examination of the ABC’s strategic objectives and the efficient achievement of those objectives, through the establishment, reporting against and utilisation of key performance indicators (KPIs) including domestic and international benchmarks. The unit aims to assist the ABC to better understand its performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, and where necessary identify actions to enhance performance improvement.
The key issue for the unit has been the establishment of improvement targets and measuring the ABC’s rate of efficiency, and it is for this reason that the unit’s efforts have been focussed on the development of a forum in order to source and produce meaningful International Benchmarks for public broadcasters.
Previous attempts by public broadcasters to develop such benchmarks have been tried but not proved successful in the past due to:
- lack of comparability of data;
- fears of appearing less efficient than others in the industry;
- distance between industry members.
However a huge step forward was achieved when an International Benchmarking Workshop for a number of public broadcasters was hosted by the ABC in Sydney in March’2001. Participants including the ABC, BBC, CBC (Canada), RNZ (Radio New Zealand), DR (Denmark) and NRK (Norway) met with the aim of ensuring data comparability between public broadcasters. The need to access relevant and comparable Public Broadcasting benchmarking data is a common objective of Public Broadcasters that has seen strong commitment and dedication of resources given in support of this initiative.
The primary focus of the workshop was to work through a diverse range of issues and reach agreement on a consistent set of KPI’s and measures, including the underlying business rules and definitions, so as to normalise information for public broadcasters that would facilitate creation of meaningful and effective benchmarking of the various participating Public Broadcasters. The group also agreed on guidelines on the accessibility and use of information and data both within the group and externally.
The group also discussed the building of a dedicated database that the ABC is hosting. Based on agreed business rules, each broadcaster will input information directly via an internet link into the database using a standard agreed template. This information will be collated within the database and enable each participating Public Broadcaster to compare their own performance against the average for the group using the various agreed measures. To further assist comparison, all expenditure will be expressed in $US dollars. This database therefore represents a terrific opportunity for participating public broadcasters to input data and retrieve industry average data to use to measure their own performance.
The workshop initially looked at in conjunction with each broadcaster:
- functions and activities
- structure
- output
- statutory requirements and obligations
- funding
- distribution/transmission
- content
The workshop considered a large number of possible KPI’s and measures.
It was agreed that in selecting KPI’s they would need to be:
- comparable across each broadcaster
- measurable and reliable with data available for each broadcaster
- relevant to each broadcasters activities
The international benchmarking workshop was an extremely valuable exercise in providing a solid base to work with on the development of KPIs and performance measures. More importantly however, in highlighting the similarity of functions and structures of the participants and notwithstanding the different environments and geographic location of each broadcaster, the establishment of such a forum has allowed for better understanding of the challenges and issues facing public broadcasters as a whole.
Work has progressed further in 2002 with the development of a database, collation of data and reporting of Public Broadcaster International Benchmarking. During May, the ABC chaired a 2 day workshop of the International Broadcasters group hosted by the NRK in Norway where:
- a commitment to progress the work of the group was affirmed by all;
- each broadcaster provided an update on their status of their work on Performance Measurement since March ‘2001 workshop (Sydney);
- agreed benchmarking definitions and underlying business rules were reviewed and confirmed;
- the initial first years data submitted by each broadcaster was reviewed against the agreed guidelines and definitions for the following benchmark categories;
o Quality
o Distinctiveness
o Efficiency
o Universality
- a real time online presentation of the Website built and hosted by the ABC was given with discussion on access and the workings of the website, which will facilitate Broadcasters direct data input and reporting;
- agreement reached on a timeline and deliverables from all member broadcasters including submission of their second years data (for either Financial Year 2001 or 2001/02) ;
- confirmation of ORF (Austria) and RTE (Ireland) joining the group – this sees 8 current members including the ABC, BBC, CBC, DR(Denmark), NRK (Norway) and RNZ;
- assignment of a project for RNZ and CBC to evaluate further measures to assist in measuring and reporting benchmarks related to “Quality”.
Following the workshop in May, each Broadcaster reviewed their data and resubmitted where corrections/amended were required. A conference call was co-ordinated by the ABC and held during July to review the amended data results. The first years data has been locked-off in the database with the first comparative reports for each Broadcasters data against the groups average provided.
The majority of Broadcasters have submitted their second years data for input into the database which once we receive the last of the data will see reports being available for comparative benchmarking data covering two completed financial years. We are also working on the collation and reporting the next years benchmarking data currently due from all broadcasters that once finished will see comparative data covering a 3 year period available in the database
The ABC is currently finalising the building of the database and will soon be providing all memberBroadcasters direct access via an Internet Link to input their data and run comparative reports.
Interest has grown in the work being undertaken by the group, following the joining of ORF and RTE in May, we have had expressions of interest from other Public Broadcasters to join the group. The group believes increasing the number of participating Broadcasters will strengthen the benchmarking initiative and allow for greater access to a diverse array of reliable benchmarking information. As the benchmarking initiative matures, the group will explore the assessment of new benchmarks and strengthening the forum for exchange of information between Public Broadcasters.
This is a significant initiative that will be of enormous benefit to public broadcasting.
The following table shows the current agreed benchmarks that data is being collated and reported against:
International Benchmarking Group – 8 current members: • ABC, BBC, CBC, DR ( Denmark ), NRK ( Norway ), ORF ( Austria ), RNZ, RTE ( Ireland ) |
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Current agreed KPI's and benchmarks – at this stage only for mediums of TV and Radio
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Category |
KPI |
Description/details |
Universiality
|
Reach |
- viewers/listeners for each medium as % of total population
|
Efficiency |
Cost per production hour % of overheads against total expenditure Cost per broadcast hour Cost per viewer/listener Utilisation of Production Resources Output per employee (FTE) |
- 1 st run produced hours by genre for each medium
- original/1 st run broadcast hours per medium
- for each medium
- Labour (Staff) - Facilities (Studios and Outside Broadcasts)
- unique/1 st run broadcast hours by each medium |
Quality
|
% of National Content |
- all broadcast hours content not sourced from other countries by medium
|
Distinctiveness |
% of Output hours (broadcast) by genre |
- against total broadcast hours for each medium agreed genres are: - News - Childrens - Drama - Sport - Entertainment - Music & Arts - Factual |