i3 - May/June 2017 - 45

By Gary Arlen

C S PAC E

Counting
Eyeballs

emember when
people knew whether
a TV show was a hit by
checking its Nielsen rating?

Credit will be complete before ship

Technologies such as NextGen TV (the
evolving ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard)
and new network alliances are creating
more specific ways to tally viewing across
delivery platforms. These ventures aim to
convince advertisers that their messages
are reaching the intended targets. That's
vital since the 2017 American Marketing
Association's Confidence Guide found that
30 percent of marketers are concerned
that their company is not spending their
budget in ways that reach customers.
Multi-platform viewing and more
programmatic ad-buying are forcing
marketers and video distributors to
accelerate their measurement sophistication. As ratings move beyond traditional
TV, advertisers want to know how their
messages perform on mobile handsets
and portable screens as well as via
on-demand, streaming platforms and
videos on Facebook and Twitter.

C TA . t e c h / i 3

Business

Ad Industry Gauges

from "across all Next Gen-enabled
devices" will give advertisers greater effiMedia/entertainment data research firm
ciency through "elevated addressability,
comScore's acquisition of Rentrak paved
personalization and accountability."
the way to expand its TV/video as well as
A closely watched new venture,
online measurement services. comScore
OpenAP, is an advanced audience plathas expanded its mobile viewing metrics
to YouTube's partner channels - a strategic form standard unveiled in March by Fox
Networks Group, Turner Broadcasting
value since about 70 percent of YouTube
and Viacom. This open platform will supviews are seen on mobile platforms.
port industry-standard
Similarly, Samba TV
launched its TV Data
Cross platform measurement sources
and data and will match
Management Platform,
viewing
an advertiser's target
which lets advertisers'
spurs new
audiences to networks'
measure impact across
measurement
multimedia plans. The
linear, over-the-top and
tools.
founders intend to put
digital media. For nearly
OpenAP into beta tests
a decade, Samba TV has
this summer. It's expected
been developing software
for smart TV sets, set-top boxes and smart- these targeting systems will become more
important to networks and advertisers
phone apps and received major funding
as more linear video feeds use Internet
from entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who saw
Protocol distribution systems.
its SyncApps technology at CES 2012.
Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar,
two of the largest U.S. TV station ownerSophisticated Viewing
ship groups, foresee a way that TV stations Measurement
can gather data without having "to rely
Nielsen's latest Millennials on Millennials
on expensive third-party measurement
report quantified the extent of some intuiservices with small sample sizes and
tive media consumption trends among
unverified results." The broadcast giants
18- to 34-year olds. It found traditional
launched the ATSC 3.0 Spectrum
TV sets are still their favorite viewing platConsortium in March, and their agenda
form (66 percent of weekly video time
includes a measurement system that
versus 23 percent on a connected device
"will capture significant and meaningful
such as via digital streaming on a game
information relating to consumers' actual console, eight percent on PC, two percent
viewing and consumption behaviors."
on smartphone) - a lot less time than the
Sinclair and Nexstar foresee that data
89 percent that older viewers (35 years
and up) watch TV.
But here's where the
Millennials don't
data
takes on more signifremember commercials because icance. Less than two perthey turn to social cent of millennials change
media or other
distractions while the channel during comads run.
mercials, far less than
35-54 (5.5 percent) and
55 and older (eight percent) age brackets.
Still, millennials have the lowest program
engagement and ad memorability scores
even though they actually like ads. The
catch is millennials don't remember commercials because they turn to social media
or other distractions while ads run.
As advertisers demand more specificity
to gauge the fragmented media landscape,
there will be many options for innovative
data analytics and tools. n
MAY/JUNE 2017

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i3 - May/June 2017

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