There probably is real money in holding luncheons and conferences once a month where TV execs are allowed to blow off steam. Variety has done that with the inaugural Variety Entertainment and Technology Summit.
FX president and general manager John Landgraf continues to push for a ratings system that is better than what Nielsen offers:
"It needs to be completely revamped," Landgraf told the crowd at Loews Santa Monica hotel. "We have to follow viewers wherever they are. The simple fact that we can't get any compensation for anyone who doesn't watch within a three-day window is ridiculous ... now that viewing takes weeks or months."
The three day window thing -- that's NOT a Nielsen thing. That's an advertisers don't want to pay beyond 3 days thing. That's not something that can be fixed with measurement. But the rest is a smokescreen because most of the DVR viewing occurs within the first 3 days, without much additional ad viewing, and all that stuff about months down the road and following viewers wherever they are: that doesn't include the same ads anyway.
There are challenges online and definitely opportunities for improved measurement, but the part where the shows have about 85% fewer ads than their TV counterparts, that's a business model issue that doesn't have anything to do with Nielsen.
NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios chairman Marc Graboff, hoped that the industry-spearheaded CIMM measurement system, now in development, might become a viable alternative -- or at least spur improvements from Nielsen.
"It's intended to really try to measure total audience consumption on any platform at any time," Graboff said. "I think Nielsen kind of woke up when they saw the consortium trying to address this."
CIMM certainly has pushed Nielsen into some marketing initiatives and speeding up a focus on convergence measurement that won't solve anything because advertisers don't WANT convergence measurement unless the identical ads are running on all platforms. TV networks want convergence measurement, not advertisers. But CIMM is nothing but a venting body or, if you prefer a research initiative.
There is no CIMM measurement system now in development.
It’s likely cheaper than psychotherapy for the broadcast network folks.
If only these guys were capable of talking without all the buzzwords and doublespeak:
“Wah! Wah! Why do we have to prove to advertisers that people are actually watching our shows. Just shovel money into our pockets without asking questions. I hate this. Just shut up and give me money. I don’t want to please our viewers, I hate our viewers. Please don’t cancel the show that I’m producing. It has lots of guest roles that require cute young girls and they have to sleep with me to get those roles. I want money.”
Kind of off topic, but just what is Nielsen’s business model? What are their products?
I mean, I know the data a network, e.g. NBC gets is far more detailed that the overnight summaries. But what does an advertiser, e.g. Unilever, get? And what are the two charged for their respective results? (I.e. where does the bulk of Nielsen’s profits come from?)
The only net result of all this CIMM whining seems to be lesser profits for Nielsen, as they are stuck eating the costs of developing the (near irrelevant) convergence reporting (and the tech needed to make that happen). But how does that really help the networks in the long run, if the advertisers continue to use the C3 ratings? Are there significant advertisers out there that just use whatever data the networks give them (and wouldn’t revolt if NBC stopped giving them C3), rather than contracting the data from Nielsen directly?
Tom, we have no idea what Nielsen charges for its ratings services. It’s biggest clients are obviously the TV networks, advertising agencies and big advertisers (although I’m not sure how many individual advertisers pay Nielsen directly).
And our point in all the writing about “convergence measurement” and CIMM is that it’s unlikely to change much of anything important. Advertisers want to pay for the eyeballs they receive, and I don’t think anything that’s currently being discussed is likely to make a big change to that.
I know CIMM is just a dog-ate-my-homework, check back in two years excuse. But my point is there has to be a step two, say, networks only giving advertisers the convergence measurements and not C3, doesn’t there? (And thus my interest in how many non-network sales Nielsen gets to see if this is even feasible.)
Can the nets really think the CIMM-delay will get them anything other than scorn from advertisers X number of years down the road otherwise?
Fighting for their lives (and jobs) they are. Funny, programming people actually want to watch (football, American Idol) seems to get fine numbers. Maybe if they stopped passing the buck and improved their shows this wouldn’t be an issue. Too late! Viewing habits have changed. The term ‘broad’casting is defunct. We’re heading to the nichecasting business. In a short while the only rating system will be ‘hits’. Our timid geniuses at the networks waited too long. And now it’s too late to get the genie back into the bottle.
Tom, you won’t see advertisers getting *only* convergence metrics unless the world changes and the ads are actually converged.
Unless that happens, the advertisers will find no utility in convergence metrics. I’m not sure how much utility advertisers will find in it even if that does happen.
An idea that I saw bandied about recently was that of an “integrated commercial,” in which the Sponsor’s product was worked into the program. This is not a new idea. Back in the 1930′s when a sponsor paid the entire costs of an on-air show, and it was “The JELL-O Show Starring Jack Benny,” the star of the program not only sold the product on air and in print ads, but also relentlessly kidded the product during the commercials. This continued when it was “The Grape Nuts Show,” and “The Lucky Strikes Show.”
Now, I was not old enough to be around during Radio’s Golden Age, but in 1963, I was watching “The Lucy Show,” at the tender age of six. In the episode Mr. Mooney has purchased a new oil heater for his home, but Lucy comes to the conclusion that he has stolen from the bank and buried the treasure in his yard. The episode ends with Lucy having struck the ground outside Mr. Mooney’s with a pick-ax and knocking a hole in his oil tank. The episode ends with her wailing trying to stop the spurt of oil by sitting on the ground. But, in 1963 there was a commercial tag that to my knowledge only ran once. Cut to Lucy’s home with daughter Chrissy giving her face a Dove soap cleansing. Viv comes in covered in oil, and tells Chrissy about the mess at Mr. Mooney’s. Chrissy explains to Viv how Dove creams your skin as you wash, Viv turns on the water in the bathroom sink to wash off the oil and says, “Yeah, another thing about Dove. It gets you clean!” (Or something like that. This was, after all, a very long time ago.)
In the 1960′s, a hour long drama ran 52 minutes minus commercials. In the 1990′s, 47 minutes. Today, 43 minutes. If Neilsen numbers are reflecting drops in viewers, and other ideas need to be bandied about for investors, maybe it’s time to look towards some old ways of selling and advertising. Product placement has worked very well with “Chuck.”
Good article. Those are some embarrassing quotes.
If you really think it’s ridiculous that you’re not getting compensated for viewing outside a three-day window, talk to your sales force. They’re the ones negotiating the currency.
The ratings are like political polls…they aren’t truly reflective of society. Personally, I agree with the tv execs. I’ve never known anyone that has actually been a member of this “Nielsen” family. Its some secret society (like the MPAA) that determines the programs this country watches. In this day and age of technology with cable boxes, dvrs, internet streams, there isn’t any reason why we can’t get an accurate account of what people are watching in their homes. They don’t want to get an accurate account since they don’t allow people to volunteer for them. They have to come to you. Why is that? Why don’t they want to know what EVERYONE is watching? Are the same people that determined “Heroes” was a smash hit its first year the exact same group of individuals that are being monitored now in 2009?
Danny, though it’s being worked out the current issues w/set top box and DVR data are that while you can figure out WHAT is watched, you can’t figure out who is watching.
And since a large percentage of the population have no DVR (2/3rds of the homes don’t have them) and even a significant percentage have NO set top box, I’d argue Nielsen’s model is more reflective of the general population.
Finally,there is a reason you can’t get a complete census. Not everyone wants to be tracked. Nielsen actually runs into this problem even with a smaller panel. While you might be open to having all your viewing measured and reported, not everyone is.
The reason they don’t allow people to volunteer for them is so that they get an unbiased (if potentially more variable — read less “precise”) account. If they allow people to volunteer for them all the fanboys and girls would be up in their arms applying for it. Meanwhile people who don’t care directly about TV ratings, but still may make a lot of purchases (e.g., most people) would be under-represented. Nielsen can certainly make corrections for this through demographic matching across the US, but basically they will be oversampling an demographic that might not really be that important (to advertisers).
Convergence measures aren’t horrible in and of themselves and it may be useful for Nielsen to research them, depending upon how costly it is to acquire the data. What would be particularly appealing to Nielsen’s broad set of customers are numbers that can be easily accumulated as well as componentized — I am fairly certain they do some degree of this already.
As mentioned, this does not directly resolve the issue between advertisers (who would argue the traditional short-window metrics are more than sufficient to judge the value of ad time) and networks (who would like to argue that delayed viewing justifies additional value) and even to fanboys (who would like to use whatever data available in whatever manner possible to justify that their show is better).
However, if the converged metrics can be componentized but still viewed in some standard fashion, it may help breed a better sense as to what the current business model requires. It may be something as simple (which of course is being done today) as improving the pricing structure for advertisements that are shown through broadcast versus those shown online, as well as further balancing the appropriate distribution of advertising across the two media.
Both networks and advertisers would be interested in these metrics. Having worked with companies with significant advertising, I have been close to the purchasing end of Nielsen data before — and knowledge of both broadcast and online advertising has been important. Traditionally these have been expressed in non-integrable ways which makes them hard to analyze comprehensively (So should we advertise more on TV or not? Why is our share of voice so dramatically different in one versus the other? etc., etc.) — which is already hard enough when combining viewership with things such as print ads. This is compounded by the current state of many advertising consultants being split by agencies dedicated to traditional media and specialty shops that focus online advertising (this model too, in time, should converge).
In brief, Nielsen has a decent market for convergence data — but if they want to be effective in it, they will have to design it correctly and actually help to *shape* the market. Their best strategy is to wait until the networks pressure them into it, but actually take advantage of the current state and have networks subsidize their research and implementation (which in some ways, they have, assuming they can just steal from CIMM).
If you want a peek into Nielsen’s business model, here is their latest 10-Q: http://tinyurl.com/yg7o4t7. Unfortunately, it provides little information on their, save for the fact that Media accounts for a relatively smaller pie of their overall business (page 43) — they do run consumer panels as well. I really can’t say what the distribution with in that chunk is to networks, agencies and actual companies themselves. On the one hand, the information is much more valuable to networks — on the other hand, there are many more advertisers than there are networks, plus, Nielsen will try to (and sometimes can) upsell their consulting services to the advertisers — yet still, there are far more competitors for advertising consulting amongst advertisers as well.
Correction: “Their best strategy is *not* to wait…”