It’s Time to Put TV and Digital On an Even Playing Field

As we reflect on the 2015 upfront and NewFront season there is no shortage of industry observers willing to make the call on how advertisers should allocate their investments across traditional TV and new digital platformsKey to these significant investment decisions is understanding where and to what extent audiences are watching TV and digital video Unfortunately the metrics commonly used to compare TV and digital viewing are vastly different and often misunderstood This results in reports in publications ranging from The Verge to The New York Times that digital video programming has a greater audience than a TV program because the total digital views are greater than the number of TV viewers based on ratings reported by NielsenIn TV the standard measurement unit for viewership is the averageminute audience amp8212 how many viewers there are in an average minute of content In the digital space on the other hand video measurement is commonly expressed as the gross number of times the video is viewed even if only for one minute or one second These two metrics are quite different and comparing one to the other unfairly tilts the comparison against TVWe are addressing this industry challenge with our Total Audience measurement solution which will deliver ratings based on liketolike metric across TV and digital Nielsen will have most of the pieces of Total Audience measurement in place by the end of the yearLetamp8217s consider two examples ABCamp8217s amp8220Jimmy Kimmel Liveamp8221 and the 2014 World Cup shown on ESPNIn May 2015 amp8220Jimmy Kimmel Liveamp8221 had an average audience of 22 million adults The 23 amp8220featuredamp8221 videos on the amp8220Jimmy Kimmel Liveamp8221 YouTube channel averaged about 9 million views and very popular ones got more than 25 million views These numbers appear to show that the YouTube audience is much larger than the TV audienceHowever the total TV audience as we measure it is not actually 22 million amp8211 thatamp8217s just the audience that tuned in during any given minute of the program The average May telecast attracted 53 million adults meaning that in the average week the program was watched by 166 million adults and over the month the reach of the program was 431 million adults Nearly one out of five American adults tuned into the program for that one month and thatamp8217s the total TV audience of amp8220Jimmy Kimmel Liveamp8221In every assessment of TV and digital audiences we need to use comparable metrics amp8212 but we canamp8217t compare YouTube views to the TV averageminute audienceIn our second example the 2014 World Cup on ESPN had an averageminute TV audience of 46 million persons and received 1155 million digital views But 46 million for TV and 1155 million for digital is the wrong comparison amp8212 if we translate digital viewership into a TV metric the averageminute digital audience of the World Cup on ESPN was 307000 representing justamp1607 lift ofamp160the TV audienceDigital viewing should be included in video measurement as soon as possible as there is no question that it is growing and has become part of everyday video consumption This will require continued collaboration between Nielsen and our clients and will also require publishers and advertisers to come to a joint decision to include digital viewing in the ratings For our part when we reference TV audience we will make it clear when we are using an averageminute metricBoth TV networks and digitalonly video publishers need to use fair comparisons when talking to advertisers Underlying this we need independent thirdparty measurement for nontraditional video channels that is comparable to what we provide for TVAs we roll out the pieces of Total Audience measurement buyers and sellers will need to weigh in and help finalize their definitions to determine which metrics to trade on amp160In the meantime buyers and sellers should bewareThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecom MyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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It’s Time to Put TV and Digital On an Even Playing Field

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Steve Hasker

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 6) - By Carl Mayer

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