In the National Utility Favorability Index™, QIA™ summarizes the favorability of each day’s media impressions for the electric utility industry within the National Favorability Media Set. This net favorability is then expressed as the % of the total impressions (favorable + neutral + critical impressions) by which either favorable impressions exceed critical impressions, or vice versa. For example, if the data point for a specific day is -20, that means that the volume of critical or unfavorable impressions exceeded the volume of favorable impressions for that day by an amount equal to 20% of all the impressions for that day. This enables QIA™’s favorability measurement to now include the impact of neutral media coverage in the calculation of overall favorability. When favorable and critical impressions are equal, or there are only neutral impressions for any given time period, this value will be 0%.
The favorability index has also been designed to allow comparative analysis between the larger set of industry impressions and smaller impression sets associated with individual utilities, and ultimately between participating utilities. The favorability process outlined above specifically enables comparisons to be accurately drawn despite variations in media and impression volumes.
