Last week, comScore said it would be rolling out crossplatform ratings in April, designed to provide media people a fuller snapshot of what people are watching across which devices. Buyers and planners have been clamoring for this data for years, so the news set off quite a stir. But Media Life readers had many questions about the methodology and logistics behind these new ratings. Media Life collected those questions and gave them to comScore to get some answers.
Respondents say comScore can develop into a real challenger with the launch of its cross-platform ratings this spring, and they heartily approve, believing that more media measurement competition is always a good thing.
ComScore’s new crossplatform ratings will bow in April, just before upfront negotiations begin and months after its merger with Rentrak. Data will include TV, over-the-top and other digital viewership.
ComScore Grows 4Q Subscription Sales
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.
Exclusives
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.
ComScore says the network’s main social accounts grew 60% year-over-year in fans, adding 4 million to its social footprint.
In an important stamp of approval making comScore’s digital audience measurement more of an industry currency, the Media Rating Council voted to grant accreditation to comScore’s Media Metrix service. The service, which measures publisher website audiences based on comScore’s “unified digital measurement” method, is the first digital content audience measurement service accredited by the MRC.
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.
ComScore and Rentrak will combine in a stock-for-stock merger, the companies said Tuesday afternoon. Rentrak will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of comScore in the deal and comScore’s CEO, Serge Matta, will lead the combined company.
ComScore, the media measurement and analytics firm, is the latest to receive accreditation from the Media Rating Council for video viewability technology. The company’s display ad viewability measurement tech had already been accredited by the MRC.
The companies’ integrated measurement approach is designed to deliver faster, smarter solutions for advertisers and broadcasters. “As advertising spend on integrated cross-media campaigns increases, there is a growing demand for solutions that bring together TV and Internet audience measurement to provide cross-media reach and frequency,” said Andy Brown, Kantar CEO-chairman.
The quality of inventory has been the Achilles heel of programmatic advertising, but comScore is hoping to help flip the script. The audience measurement firm on Thursday announced the launch of an “Industry Trust” initiative to bring its advertising metrics directly to programmatic ad platforms as soon as this quarter. The idea is to give programmatic media buyers the ability to transact upon the same metrics for both programmatic and direct campaigns, including those available in comScore’s Media Metrix Multi-Platform and validated Campaign Essentials.
The service will provide new information on how many people are watching shows beyond the home TV set, providing an instant lift in numbers.
ComScore has released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 192 million Americans watched online content videos via desktop computer in November. Google Sites is ranked as the top video content property, AOL was the top video ad property and Vevo topped the list of YouTube partner channels.
In an advertising marketplace disparity that likely has not been seen since Arbitron and Nielsen competed as currencies for local TV advertising buys decades ago, a report released this morning suggests the gap is far worse for the burgeoning online video advertising business. Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser shows audience estimates produced by comScore, the current Madison Avenue standard, to be about three times higher than those being produced by challenger Nielsen.
For local media companies, the benefits of big data are many, including a positive impact on the bottom line, but harnessing that data presents a challenge. Working with big data invariably means stitching together a solution among a disparate field of vendors, as well as creating an in-house team to analyze the data. Not to mention the potential legal problems. Part one of a three-part special report on local media and big data, looking at the promises and challenges of this fast-changing field. Read part one here. Read the full report here.
As local media companies eye the potential of big data for deepening their engagement with audiences and advertisers, they are learning just how messy, expensive, incremental and imperfect the process can be. In the first of a three-part special report on local media and big data, NetNewsCheck looks at the promise and challenges of this fast-changing field.
The sports network completed a one month, five-platform measurement initiative that successfully showed the sports network can provide a measurement solution across a changing consumption of video, audio and display content.
Digital Inventory Oversupply Hampers Ad $$$
A new white paper from comScore suggests that a new metric, “validated impressions,” can help advertisers and publishers correct the oversupply of online ad inventory that is inhibiting the flow of marketing dollars to digital.
Each of the top five video ad properties — YouTube, BrightRoll, Hulu, Adap.tv and TubeMogul — delivered more than 1 billion video ads last month, according the new data from comScore.
The company partners with Google and comScore to explore new methods of single-source, cross-platform video measurement.
In an effort it hopes will help it plan for the future of video, NBCU has enlisted Google and ComScore to reveal how viewers watch the Olympics across screens including the iPad.
Plagued by inconsistent measurement systems, the industry is seeking to standardize online audience measurements. The IAB, ANA and 4As are working on the Making Measurement Make Sense initiative that could help boost digital and cross-platform ad growth.
Video advertising continued to grow last month in tandem with the expansion of the online video audience. Americans watched 5.3 million video ads last month, up from 4.6 million in May, according comScore. Video ads reached nearly half (49%) of the total U.S. population an average of 35.6 times during the month.
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement — a consortium of media and advertising companies that includes AT&T, Microsoft, News Corp., Time Warner and Comcast, among others — said it will conduct two pilot tests with Arbitron and ComScore aimed at monitoring the behavior of so-called three-screen users who watch video with a bevy of different devices.
CBSNews.com registered over 19 million unique visitors in November, besting ABC News, Fox News and the BBC in online traffic in the United States, according to the latest numbers from comScore. Dan Farber, CBS News editor-in-chief, talks about the efforts the news organization is making to draw visitors to its site.
