measurement

The top media buying agencies have joined with most major programmers in setting standards for currency-level media measurement and the key measurement companies have been invited to be certified that they can meet those standards. GroupM, Publicis Media, Omnicom Media Group, IPG Mediabrands and RPA have become part of the working group that will be making decisions and certifying vendors for the U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) on media measurement. Roku is the first streamer to join.

Despite dubious transparency and questionable methodologies, Nielsen remains a preeminent presence in measuring domestic TV audiences. And it’s monthly “Gauge” market share tracker, introduced in 2021, has continued to draw attention. On Wednesday, Nielsen released its latest graphic, highlighting U.S. TV usage for January. “Streaming” occupied 38.1% of the overall viewing pie. That’s up nearly 10% from the 28.9% it registered in Nielsen’s comparable “Gauge” from January 2022.

Long-time audience measurement exec Chris Wilson has joined startup HyphaMetrics as CEO, succeeding Joanna Drews, who moves to president and co-founder of the panel-based measurement service that hopes to compete directly with Nielsen’s TV meter products.

As the television industry looks for better ways to measure viewers, NBCUniversal wants the audience metrics used to buy and sell advertising to take into account the quality of the video and how much it engages consumers. NBCU on Wednesday is holding its annual pre-upfront presentation highlighting its data and technology capabilities for advertisers. This year’s event is called One23.

During a pre-upfront period when networks are looking to separate themselves from the competition, NBCUniversal has invited its rivals to speak at its annual tech and data presentation in order to promote the Joint Industry Committee formed by programmers to create modern standards and a certification process for audience measurement.

Disney Advertising and EDO, one of a growing handful of upstart companies hoping to offer new method of counting video viewers, have struck a pact that will have EDO examine audience engagement acorss Disney’s streaming assets, starting with Hulu.

Overall TV usage inched up in December, but streaming, cable and broadcast platforms all lost a bit of their market share. NBCUniversal’s Peacock service also broke into the individual streaming platform rankings. Nielsen’s monthly Gauge rankings of TV use show December 2022 had a tiny gain over November in the total time spent, growing by 0.3%. Most of that growth, however, came in the “other TV use” category and was driven by an increase in gaming on TV screens (the “other” category also includes physical media playback and some on demand viewing). The uptick in video game play brought other TV use to 6.3% of all time spent, up from 4.3% in November.

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the TVB said they launched a study that will assess local TV measurement in the U.S. and develop an action plan to make improvements. The group has hired Sequent Partners to work on the project.

The media companies looking to form a joint industry committee to create standards for audience measurement have formally invited media agencies to join the organization. Letters were sent to all of the major agency holding companies Wednesday asking them to participate.

Netflix has expanded its measurement deal with Nielsen. Under the terms of the deal, Netflix will now subscribe to Nielsen’s national TV content measurement and streaming TV data services.

The commercial viability of premium programming hangs in the balance as a debate rages not just over who measures viewers and how to count them, but what content is included. Now, advertisers are looking for cross-screen measurement and a new can of worms has been opened. NBCUniversal is happy to let clients know the deduplicated reach and frequency of campaigns that run across NBC, USA Network and Peacock. (Ditto for The Walt Disney Co. with ABC, ESPN, Hulu and Disney+). Include user-generated content from the YouTubes and the TikToks of the world, or other forms of content that isn’t professionally created, though, and all bets are off.

Most of the biggest television programmers have banded together in a new attempt to fix what they see as an audience measurement problem and promote competition to Nielsen, ending its stranglehold on the industry. Comcast NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, TelevisaUnivision and the VAB said Monday they formed a Joint Industry Committee so they can work together to set standards for measuring what they call premium video, which generates $70 billion in advertising revenue.

The company says that the cross-platform measurement product will hit the market on Jan. 11, well ahead of the 2023 upfront negotiations, and fresh off the launch of new streaming tiers from Netflix and Disney+. Nielsen One Ads has been anticipated by marketers and media buyers, promising deduplicated measurement across linear TV, connected TV devices (i.e., Roku), mobile devices (like smartphones), and desktop computers.

This week’s CES event in Las Vegas will highlight solutions coupling interactive with measurement technologies for broadcasters, who have much to gain by upgrading their game to a more digital-like experience.

Warner Bros Discovery has enlisted measurement firm VideoAmp to track ad campaigns across screens for the company’s network and brand portfolio, which spans sports, news, lifestyle and entertainment. An announcement of the companies’ agreement said it followed the completion of a “first-of-its-kind test-and-learn” process designed to turn up alternative ways to gauge video ad performance.

The television industry went through a wild ride in 2022, The bottom fell out in pay TV, the losses the industry suffered shifted to streaming were unbearable, ad-supported streaming picked up but measurement issues slowed the flow of ad dollars. What’s ahead in 2023? A number of prominent industry executives have bravely ventured their thoughts about the future. If nothing else, they provide food for thought as we close out the old year and get ready for the new one.

Comscore joins the independent station’s portfolio of other research resources including Marshall Marketing, Scarborough, WideOrbit, Cox Reps Television Analytics and others.

While a highly public battle brews to break up Nielsen’s monopolistic hold on the national television measurement business, Comscore more quietly is making advances against Nielsen on the local ratings front. Media buyer Zimmerman Advertising, part of the giant Omnicom Media Group, will be testing Comscore data for use as local market currency.

Defending champion France’s 2-1 win over England on Saturday, which started at 2 p.m. ET, was seen by 13.5 million, including 8.3 million on Fox, 3.1 million on Spanish-language Telemundo, 560,000 on Fox digital platforms and 1.5 million on the Telemundo and Peacock streaming services. Argentina’s penalty-kicks victory over the Netherlands on Friday, which began at 2 p.m. ET, was viewed by 11.1 million, including 5.78 million on Fox, 3.1 million on Telemundo, 665,000 on Fox digital and 1.53 million on Peacock and Telemundo streaming.

This year’s Quarter Finals round of U.S. Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo and Peacock averaged 4.0 million, up 54% vs. 2018’s Quarter Finals.

With a 10 p.m. primetime hand back hanging over broadcast, Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy says producing more of the same local news will have diminishing returns for the whole industry. In a wide-ranging Executive Session interview, Abernethy weighs in on programming challenges and their pressures on newsrooms, streaming opportunities and his outlook for syndication, measurement, auto’s resurgence in spot and broadcast’s ability to compete against the big streamers.

Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of TV use shows streaming platforms commanding 37.3% of viewing time in the United States, up from 36.9% in September. Streaming has grown for eight straight months, according to Nielsen, and has led all platforms for four months in a row. Broadcast viewing rose by 10 percent over September and added 1.8 share points thanks to big growth among dramas and sports.

iSpot, a media measurement company vying to win clients amid recent pushback against rival Nielsen. has led an investment round in TVision,a company that aims to provide second-by-second analysis of how people watch TV.

The Media Rating Council decided that it is not ready to re-accredit Nielsen’s television ratings service just as the measurement company is getting ready to launch its new Nielsen One system. The decision led Nielsen critics to renew their objections to Nielsen going forward with Nielsen One. Despite industry criticism and increased activity with alternative measurement providers, Nielsen remains the predominant currency for buying and selling billions of dollars worth of advertising.

Measurement company Comscore reported a larger-than-expected loss in the third quarter as it took big write-offs and charges. Comscore’s third quarter net loss was $52.4 million, or 60 cents a share, compared to a loss of $2 million, or 2 cents a share, a year ago. Contributing to the red ink were a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $45 million and restructuring costs of $5.6 million.

By Nielsen’s count, 7.8 million people watched Amazon Prime’s coverage of last Thursday’s NFL game between New Orleans and Arizona. But Amazon says no, there were actually 8.9 million people watching. So which is it? You’ll have to judge for yourself. After each of its Thursday night games this season, Amazon has publicly contracted Nielsen in this manner. Neither company is saying the other is wrong, but neither is backing down, either. The result is confusion, most notably for advertisers.

The agreement provides a suite of Nielsen and Gracenote solutions to power engagement of U.S. Hispanics across Spanish-language media.

The partnership will cover the Fox portfolio, leveraging InnovidXP for measurement of linear and streaming.

Netflix has signed up to U.K. ratings body BARB in what is a massive coup for TV audience measurement in Britain. BARB, an acronym for the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, claims to be the first industry-owned audience currency in the world that Netflix has joined. While BARB has technically been reporting on streaming numbers in the U.K. for a year now — numbers that have only been available to its broadcaster clients and prohibited from being published — it’s been doing so without the involvement of Netflix and Amazon as clients. (Disney+ is already signed up.)

Nielsen Holdings said that it completed its sale to a group of private equity investors led by Elliott Investment Management and Brookfield Business Partners. The deal is valued at $16 billion, including the assumption of debt. The change of control happens at a time when media companies and media buyers are more actively exploring alternatives to Nielsen as currency for buying and selling advertising.

Advertising measurement platform VideoAmp says it now offers a second-by-second measurement tool for TV-video marketers. The measurement tool combines data from smart TV ACR (automated content recognition) data and set-top box TV home viewership data across more than 39 million TV homes.

Measurement company Comscore said it is restructuring its operation, resulting in employee layoffs that will cost the company $6 million to $8 million in severance payments. Changes the company plans to make include reducing its data center footprint and lowering operating expenses including software and facility costs. Comscore said it might also quit certain businesses and exit some geographic regions.

The media-measurement giant has entered into a pact with streaming portal Roku that calls for Nielsen to track viewership across traditional and connected TV watching, desktop usage and mobile screens. Advertisers who use Roku can get data on the reach of their commercials among Roku users that will rely on so-called “deduplicated” audiences, or people who aren’t seeing the same content on different viewing platforms.

Media agency Dentsu said it will shift its local TV buying to a Comscore-based currency, which will allow it to make transaction based on advanced audiences in all 210 markets. Dentsu media buying units include Carat, Dentsu X and iProspect. Dentsu reached an agreement to use Comscore for local TV measurement in February.

Kansas City’s 27-24 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers last Thursday averaged 15.3 million viewers across all platforms according to Nielsen and Amazon’s first party measurement. Prime Video Vice President Jay Marine said in a note to staff earlier this week that “our measurement shows that the audience numbers exceeded all of our expectations for viewership.”