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How TV should really be measured
June 25, 2008
NBC Digital Entertainment’s announcement today that it will provide “show-specific streaming demographic data” is step in the right direction. All TV networks should take note – hear that, ABC?
To do this, NBC will use Nielsen Online’s VideoCensus, the company’s new streaming measurement tool. According to NBC, VideoCensus “will make it easier to analyze cross-platform consumption and the full reach and engagement of content.”
This follows on something I’ve been ranting about for a while now: the TV ratings that we, the press, see each day no longer have much to do with how a show is performing. And many journalists who follow the business of television – particularly those at consumer-oriented publications – still consider the number of viewers a show attracts (and that the network releases the next day) the key measure of a show’s success.
Viewers and households haven’t been important metrics for at least six years. I remember (and now I’m going to sound like a grandparent) when I moved to Los Angeles in 2002 to cover the networks and syndicators. The networks beat it into my head that adults 18-49 was the demographic to whom they sold even though most trades were still reporting on households.
Adults 18-49 remains the important demo, but today there are many invisible factors that come into play regarding a show’s success. How many people are recording the show on their DVR? When are they watching it? Are they skipping through the commercials? Are they retaining information about any of the commercials? Are they watching the show on the Internet? And most importantly, once all these things are added together, how many people are watching the commercials and retaining anything about them?
To me and the advertisers who just spent nearly $20 billion on upfront ad buys, that’s the only question that really matters. While many people are working on getting an answer and developing an accordant metric, no such thing exists at the moment. But what NBC is doing is at least a first step.
Posted by Paige Albiniak on June 25, 2008 | Comments (0)
