Parochial Report Resources
Tips for Measuring and Recording Online Service Attendance
Measuring and recording online attendance is not as simple and straightforward as tracking average in-person Sunday attendance. Congregations in the Diocese of West Tennessee are using a variety of platforms, though the most common appear to be Facebook, YouTube, and Zoom. Instructions for gathering viewer metrics on those platforms can be found through the following links:
New Online Parish Register of Services
The new online Parish Register of Services includes a section to record data about online streaming views. It asks for “Unique Views Online.” This means the number of people who viewed your service live, or “live views.” When examining the viewer metrics on the platforms you use for streaming this would be the number of those viewing worship online for at least one minute during the hour of that liturgy.
It will also asks for “Unique Recorded Views of Online Stream.” This means the number of those who viewed worship online for at least one minute following the time Sunday service ends up until the start of worship on the following week. If you are recording in the Parish Register immediately following your services, you will need to go back and record this number from the previous week each time.
We recommend continuing to use the print version of the Parish Register of Services in conjunction with the online version if possible, for historical purposes.
New Parochial Report
The advantage of using the online register is that it integrates directly with the new Parochial Report and will populate all of the previous year’s information for in-person and online worship automatically.
This new report asks for the same two metrics as the online register does: “live views” and “after views.” It asks for data about any live weekday services as well, but only “live views.”
Accounting for Households
Neither the parochial report nor the register offer any guidance for knowing how to account for households who view online worship together. One approach used by the Diocese of Texas is to
take those viewing worship online during the hour of liturgy on Sunday for at least one minute during the service time. Add this to those that viewed worship online for at least one minute from the time the service ends up until the service starts the following week. This is then multiplied by 1.5 to reflect the households that view worship online together. This sum is your total online attendance on a given week.