Analytics

With the major broadcasters gearing up to make their annual Upfront presentations to advertisers in New York next week the challenge of measuring program viewership across all of the platforms and use cases where it appears these days is again at the top of the TV industry’s agenda. But those hoping for the emergence of a single, widely accepted ratings currency that covers linear, on-demand, over-the-top and time-shifted viewing wherever it occurs may need to wait a little longer — or perhaps give up hoping altogether.

Networks and advertisers have long relied on Nielsen ratings to set prices for ads in individual programs. But with more ever-more viewing taking place on mobile and other non-traditional platforms that Nielsen cannot directly measure, the networks complain they are not given credit by advertisers for views they can document from other sources but which are not reflected in Nielsen’s data.

Both sides are anxiously awaiting results of a partnership announced late last year between Nielsen and Adobe to leverage Adobe’s visibility into video activity on digital devices to create a new, all-platform digital measurement standard that will align with Nielsen’s traditional TV ratings. But progress has been slower than the networks had hoped.

According to the latest timeline, Nielsen and Adobe plan to launch a beta version of service in July, with a full roll-out later this year. Any slippage in that timetable, however, could mean going through another Upfront season, when advertisers commit the bulk of their TV money for the year, without a standard metric.

In the meantime, other players are moving to fill the void. Late last month, digital metrics provider comScore began providing networks with preliminary data from its cross-media measurement system developed in collaboration with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a group that includes A&E Networks, CBS, Disney ABC Television Group, ESPN, Fox Networks, NBC Universal, Scripps Networks, Univision, and Viacom. In a first for comScore, the new measurement system incorporates traditional linear TV viewing along with digital activity.

In addition to CIMM, the comScore effort has the backing of WPP, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, which earlier this year took a substantial equity position in comScore.  WPP also owns Kantar Media, which tracks cross-platform viewership outside the U.S., and last year bought a 17 percent stake in Rentrak. As part of that deal, Rentrak acquired Kantar’s TV measurement business in the U.S.

In an Q&A with Variety last month, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell said his goal is use those investments to forge a global standard for TV measurement across all platforms:

We would like there to be an industry standard and we would like it to be our industry standard, measuring both offline and online, in the same way we measure TV audiences in 45 countries. A non-U.S. Nielsen, if you like. We have a partnership with Nielsen in one or two places, and in the same way they are regarded as a sort of industry standard for offline in the U.S., we want to make sure we have as good an offline standard as possible and also have an online standard that is acceptable to our clients, who want to measure the effectiveness of their return on investment, and see who can accumulate things more effectively.

The networks themselves, meanwhile, have begun cobbling together their own multi-platform metrics products drawing on multiple data sources in an effort to help advertisers target the networks’ audiences across platforms, even in the absence of a ratings standard. Ahead of the Upfronts, NBC Universal rolled out its Audience Targeting Platform while Turner Networks introduced its Turner Audience Platform and Viacom launched Viacom Vantage.

Whether any of those new data products will ever be as widely embraced as the venerable Nielsen rating remains to be seen, however.

For the last few months, Adobe has been rebuilding its video players to incorporate Nielsen’s SDK and then working with its customers on new implementations of the updated players, Adobe senior product manager for analytics Scott Smith told Smart Content News. “Once that’s done we’ll be able to measure content directly on digital devices, both web content and apps, Smith explained. “We’ll then cleanse that data, get it accredited by the [Media Ratings Council] and turn it over the Nielsen. They will then do the audience demographic analysis and they’ll be able to assign a rating to digital viewership that is comparable to their TV rating.”

Since not all digital platforms use Adobe’s software, in particular many dedicated OTT platforms like Roku and Apple TV, Nielsen has also had to negotiate separate deals such as its recently announced partnership with Roku, to fill in the blanks.

“Getting the total audience around TV and digital — reach a frequency — is the holy grail everyone is after,”  Smith said. “Programmers want a count, and they want to know time spent, engagement.”