A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

N

Narrowcasting
Programmes designed for minority or special audiences.

Near Video on Demand
A pay per view facility offered by digital television providers where a subscriber can request from a list of videos a movie with staggered start times (usually half to quarter-hour intervals). This avoids the cost of using video on demand technology. See Subscribers, Impulse Pay Per View and Pay-Per-View.

Net Audience
Net Audience is the estimate of the number of people who will have at least one opportunity to see or hear a programme or channel/station or an insertion in a given schedule or hear a commercial.

Net Coverage Net Impacts
See Impacts.

Net OTS
See OTH/OTS.

Net Press Run
Total of copies printed suitable for distribution. 

Network
A National or regional station or channel offering common programmes through a series of transmitters or a group of stations or channels affiliated with each other for common programming, at certain times of day.

New Media
Generic term used to describe the digital publishing and multimedia sector. This phrase is often associated with interactive technology such as the Internet. See Multimedia.

NICAM
Abbreviation of Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplexing. A system developed in the UK by the BBC used to transmit digital stereo audio as part of an analogue TV signal that is then decoded by Nicam compatible TV sets and video recorders.

Niche Channel
A channel aimed at a niche market.

Niche Market
A market that is closely defined as a relatively small number of individuals to be targeted.

Noise
Disruptive electrical signals caused by electrical devices like power lines and radio transmitters. These signals can interfere with data carried on cable lines.

Nomogram
Chart used to estimate Confidence Limits. A nomogram for one survey should not be used to estimate the confidence limits of other surveys. This is because the Design Factor of the survey is built into the nomogram, and the design factor varies from survey to survey.

Noting Scores
Percentage of a publication's readers who claimed to read or look at a specific editorial item, advertisement, type of advertisement, etc. Noting scores should be used with caution as they have been shown to reflect interest and involvement in the subject of articles or advertisements rather than genuine exposure

NRS
 (National Readership Surveys Ltd). NRS is the joint industry company responsible for the provision of readership estimates for UK newspapers and consumer magazines. Currently it publishes data for around 250 titles. NRS Ltd is funded by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) and Periodical Publishers Association (PPA). Ipsos-RSL has operated this service for NRS Ltd for many years. A new contract was awarded in 2002 which included the testing of Ipsos-RSL's new Double Screen CAPI technology which provides on-screen display of mastheads and other visual aids. The annual sample size for the NRS is 36,000 individuals, selected using random probability methods.

NTSC
Abbreviation for National Television System Committee, the standard has a fixed vertical resolution of 525 horizontal lines.  Format used in the USA, South America and others
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O

OBC
Abbreviation for Outside Back Cover

Object Database
Also known as ODB. A database that can manage complicated data such as audio and video images.

Occupational Groups
See Socio-Economic Groups.

OFCOM
Abbreviation of the Office of Communications. This organisation is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services.

OFTEL
Abbreviation of the Office of Telecommunications. This organisation is the UK's telecommunications regulatory and supervisory body.

Omnibus Surveys
Quantitative surveys where the questionnaire is shared between clients. Omnibus surveys provide a cost-efficient means of achieving large samples, particularly if only a limited number of questions are asked. They can also be cost-efficient at achieving good samples of groups of people who are difficult and therefore expensive to locate. The savings arise because these groups are often sub-samples of the omnibus survey's total universe.

Online
Directly controlled by or connected to a computer.

Online Research
See Interactive Research.

Online Shopping
Purchasing from the Internet usually over a secure server. Also known as e-Commerce. See Home Shopping, Secure Server and Encryption.

Opportunities to See (OTS)/Hear (OTH)
Opportunities to see the advertisements in a campaign. The term "opportunity" recognises that while everyone who reads/looks at an advertisement could see that advertisement, not everyone does so. The definition in terms of television research is to say that someone who is "in the room with the set switched on and turned to a particular channel" has an opportunity to see a commercial transmitted on that channel at that time. The definition in terms of print research is the number of people who claim to have read or looked at a publication during the issue period. In terms of poster, cinema and radio research OTS occurs when a person passes a poster site, when he/she sits in a cinema and when he/she finds him/herself listening to a radio station at a time when a given commercial is transmitted (OTH- opportunity to hear).  "Opportunity to see" is abbreviated to OTS. See Gross OTH/OTS, Net Reach (= Net OTS) and Average Frequency (= Average OTS).

Optical Character Recognition
Also known as OCR. This allows a scanner to identify characters on a printed page and can save them as a text document.

Optimisation
A computer programme that calculates the "best" media schedule for a given budget, target group and candidate media. Optimisations should be used with caution.

Order Effects
Differences in survey results, caused by the order in which questions have been asked and items have been presented e.g. the order in which publications are listed in a readership survey. See Title Confusion and Title Rotation.

OTH/OTS
Abbreviation of Opportunities to Hear/ Opportunities to See

Out of Home Viewing
The TV audience where people are watching anywhere outside a private house, such as in pubs, clubs, offices, and other work places, hospitals, doctors'/dentists' waiting rooms, hotel rooms, airport lounges, post offices, etc. This type of "non-domestic" viewing may be particularly important for some broadcasters, e.g. niche satellite channels.

Outdoor Research
Research on outdoor media such as posters, bus sides, adverts in Underground tubes etc.

Overclaim
When respondents claim to own, purchase, fly more frequently, earn more, to have read a publication, have seen an advertisement (and so on) more than they actually do or have done. The opposite of Underclaim.

Overlap
In TV, areas of the country that can receive 2 or more ITV1 transmission signals.

Oversampling
Used to provide larger samples of certain groups of people than representative sampling would give. These are usually sub-universes that are of particular interest to advertisers (such as top management, etc.). To do this, quotas are set for the sample sizes of these groups. The quota sample then has to be weighted back to the overall survey universe so that the sub-universe is not over-represented. Also known as Booster Samples.