audience measurement

Cablecast Community Media will unveil its Version 7.6 software at NAB Show 2023 in Las Vegas April 15-19. Cablecast 7.6 includes the new Audience Measurement Dashboard for advanced viewer insights, […]

Tubular Labs, a social video content and audience measurement company, today appointed Stephen DiMarco chief strategy officer, effective immediately. As the company furthers its efforts to be the de facto […]

Viaccess-Orca | Stand 1.A51 | http://www.viaccess-orca.com   Viaccess-Orca, a global provider of OTT and TV platforms, content protection, and advanced data solutions, will showcase its new audience measurement service, VO Audience […]

Viaccess-Orca | Stand 1.A51 | Website: http://www.viaccess-orca.com Key Products and Technology Demos Multi-DRM Suite Guarantees Premium Content Protection — VO will showcase a feature-rich, end-to-end content protection solution for multiscreen TV […]

A TVNewsCheck webinar about the changing TV ratings scene will feature experts from advertising, broadcasting and the research community addressing how to improve local audience measurement.

Dolan Family Ventures, owned by the Dolan family, which  founded Cablevision Systems and this year sold it to French telecom firm Altice, just created its own audience measurement and analytics business, called 605, that will tap its “relationships with partners across the country that provide extensive, privacy-protected, set-top box viewing data.” In conjunction with that, DFV bought data firm Analytics Media Group, which it says has “deep political, marketing and analytics expertise.”

Audience measurement, like online advertising, has suffered from plenty of growing pains over the past few years, with providers struggling to define consistent metrics and reduce problems such as click fraud. But the recent wins chalked up separately by comScore and TVision show that progress is being made on this front.

Nielsen, the 93-year-old company that has long operated an effective monopoly over television ratings in the United States, is facing blistering criticism from TV and advertising executives who see it as a relic of television’s rabbit-ears past as the digital revolution transforms how people consume entertainment. New competition — notably the $768 million merger this week of the media measurement companies comScore and Rentrak — is forcing Nielsen to evolve.

On the heels of its acquisition of Rentrak, comScore is preparing a suite of new products and services leveraging its combined assets. ComScore CEO Serge Matta says the focus of media consumption will be based on households. Leveraging what he calls the “Total Home Panel,” Matta says the new comScore will measure up to a dozen devices per home, integrated with Rentrak’s digital set-top measurements.

The two longtime media measurement firms plan to use their “massive data scale to establish new currencies for understanding consumers’ multiscreen behavior.”

In separate special meetings on Thursday, ComScore Inc. and Rentrak Corp. shareholders voted to approve the previously announced merger of the two companies. At closing, which is expected by close of business Friday, Jan. 29, Rentrak will become a wholly owned subsidiary of ComScore. Also after the close of trading on Jan. 29, ComScore will join the S&P MidCap 400 Index, moving from the S&P SmallCap 600 Index.

The two companies set shareholder meetings for Jan. 28, 2016, to approve the deal.

Audience measurement firm ComScore agreed to acquire rival Rentrak in an all-stock deal that aims to reshape the business of sizing up what consumers are watching — and the ads they are seeing — whether on TV, the Web or mobile devices. Under the deal’s terms, each share of Rentrak will be converted into the right to receive 1.15 shares of ComScore, valuing Rentrak at $732 million, compared with Tuesday market value of $697 million.

Symphony Advanced Media, the San Francisco-based media measurement and research firm, is looking to take on incumbents like Nielsen and comScore with Tuesday’s launch of cross-screen measurement tool VideoPulse.

The ratings firm says it’s moving the introduction of its new system that would replace paper diaries from Oct. 1 to January following “significant feedback” from clients concerned about the so-called “viewer assignment” methodology the new system is using to derive demographic data for stations in smaller markets from larger local people-meter markets, some located far away.

As the October deadline by which Nielsen hopes to start rolling out its replacement for the paper diary nears, some broadcasters are upset. They say the initial results from the code reader system are giving them lower ratings and questionable demos. Meanwhile, the Media Rating Council is taking a hard look before giving the system its blessing.

For video consumers, choice is rampant — in both content and platform. In fact, Tremor Video CEO Bill Day says the current environment has created what he deems the golden age of video. When talking about the complexity in reaching consumers amid media fragmentation, Day stresses his belief that it should be relatively short lived as companies like Tremor Video and Nielsen take a broader view of the total audience.

Results from the ratings service’s new “code-reader” viewer measuring system that is set to replace the age-old paper diaries become available in June and what the data will look like is anybody’s guess. Uncertainty over the new system, its accuracy, its impact and its pricing appears widespread in the 14 markets where the new system is being introduced.

This final installment of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement looks at the impasse in the search for a local ratings currency that’s acceptable to both broadcasters and agencies. The broadcasters want some credit for DVR viewing, while most agencies still insist on live-only numbers. Although a compromise floated by TVB President Steve Lanzano went nowhere, some agency executives concede that broadcasters have a point.

Part II of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement examines the growing challenge to Nielsen supremacy in providing ratings from Rentrak. But the growing acceptance of Rentrak’s service, powered by set-top box data, has not gone unnoticed by Nielsen. It’s well aware of station frustration over its traditional measures and says it will be rolling out enhancements next year to its diary-based ratings that will better reflect actual viewership, keep paying station-clients satisfied and head off this new competition.

In Part I of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement, Media Ratings Council Chairman and Raycom Media chief researcher Billy McDowell discusses the state of local TV ratings and what’s being done to make them better. He also gives no ground in the battle over what measure should be used in local TV: live-plus-same-day is the only way to go.