Top US media companies and marketers are working on their own consortium to break the grip of the dominant force in the TV audience measurement business. Media participants including networks owned by NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery and Disney are frustrated by the glacial pace of development in the critical business of counting viewers in the digital age.
They expect to have the consortium operational by next month and have pulled in advertisers Procter & Gamble and AT&T, the top and third biggest US advertiser, along with Unilever.
The involvement of such big names highlights how urgently advertisers feel the need for better information to justify their returns on investments from ads that run across multiple media platforms.
Media agencies GroupM, owned by WPP, and Starcom MediaVest are also joining the consortium.
The move could be a big blow to Nielsen, which controls the measurement of US TV audiences through the polling of some 18,000 homes where viewer habits are measured by clicks of a special remote control.
TV audience measurement is considered the lifeblood of the media industry. The $70bn spent on US TV advertising a year is allocated according to viewer numbers, and thus accuracy in assessing these is crucial. The explosion of online video viewing has made the measuring of audiences across TV, the internet and mobile devices more difficult.
"The most deficient thing is there's no single source measurement (for television and digital video)," Sam Armando, senior vice-president of audience analysis at Starcom MediaVest, told the FT, confirming the establishment of the new group. Starcom's clients include Procter & Gamble.
"The thing is not let's go out to replace Nielsen," Mr Armando said. But, he added: "It's not a leap of faith to think that another [measurement company] can come in and do both."
FT.com
It's WAY passed time for this. I want to think this signals hopes that new measures will demonstrate the staying power in daytime soaps. Unfortunately, we've already lost GL, but could this bode well for the rest?
ReplyDeleteSO happy to hear this!! I think it is LONG overdue, as our beloved shows live and die by these numbers..and the way many people view soaps these days has changed.. As a professional, I view in the evenings online and on Soapnet, but like many of my friends/peers I still view RELIGIOUSLY!. Also...as one of the most traveled people you would EVER meet in your life, due to my career, (and having lived in several cities in the US and abroad), I find it bizarre that I have NEVER known/met ONE person or family that has a Nielsen box, in all my years! Yet the Nielsens are supposed to accurately represent the viewing habits of our entire COUNTRY!?!...and our favorite Soaps with legions and generations of fans are in danger of cancellation over those numbers? Something needs to change so that we are SURE that those numbers are an accurate representation. I do not believe that they are, given this day and age and the different ways in which we can now view our beloved shows.
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