The integrated measurement of advertising across both TV and internet viewing might happen sooner than we thought. Nielsen now expects to have a portion of its people meter households covered with "Internet meters" prior to the 2010-2011 broadcast season.
Once that happens, count on internet viewing on Hulu.com and the network's websites having the same national advertising load as the telecasts for at least 3 days after airtime, so it will count in the C+3 commercial ratings that the networks sell to advertisers.
Urged by clients to move faster, Nielsen responded Tuesday (Dec. 1) with a plan to accelerate the rollout of the Internet meter to its national people meter sample. The plans call for Nielsen to complete the roll out by Aug. 31, 2010, instead of some time in 2011.
The initiative, now called TVandPC will create the industry's first single source measure of viewing to both TV and online. Once the rollout is complete, Nielsen will be able to report online video viewing from 7,500 national-people-meter homes, representing about 20,000 people and 12,000 computers.
via MediaWeek
the devil is in the details here.
1.) When it’s planned to roll out, when it is rolled out and when the results will be ready to be certified could be three separate dates! Though I’m sure even an August 31 completion won’t make the cable nets happy for their summer fare.
2.) only C3 eligible programs will be tracked and those will only be the ones with the same national commercial loads as on TV. While there is no chance Hulu will be able to show new TV shows within 3 days of their airing on TV with fewer commercials once it’s rolled out, it’s possible Hulu will not participate in C3 and add those programs only after the C3 period runs out.
I agree, and its hard to say from what’s written in the story, but it sounds like it may be ready do the reporting beginning then.
Theoretically the solution could be to withhold shows until 3 days after they air from online viewing, but I don’t see that being what happens in practice. If that’s what they’re going to do, why wait for the new measurement to be in place? They could just do it now.
Maybe it’s an insult if the mistress is Australian.
Pardon my ignorance, but what does c3 mean?
And does this mean no more “But people watch it online!” square on the Fan Excuse Bingo cards?
This is somewhat confusing. TV and PC ratings seem like entirely different animals to me. As an advertising sales tool, I don’t see the usefulness of combining them into one measure.
Isn’t this just expanding the “do DVR numbers matter” controversy?
Adam, not at all. There is some confusion because we attempt to infer commercial ratings from program ratings (since we rarely see commercial ratings), and commercial ratings are all that matter for ad sales.
Unfortunately, we may rarely see these integrated measurements as well, but I’m not certain of that.
c3 = C+3 = commercial ratings within 3 days of airdate
And yes, presumably watching a commercial within 3 days of airdate online will be equivalent to watching it either live or within 3 days on your DVR.
and how are you gonna meter them technically?
Per Shelly’s comment:
Can we change the bingo square to read “but people watch it on their phone!”
“Nielsen will be able to report online video viewing from 7,500 national-people-meter homes, representing about 20,000 people and 12,000 computers.”
This doesn’t solve the main problem at all. Not everyone is being included in this measurement. It is just as if they had Nielsen boxes hooked up to their USB ports.
Who is to say those 7,500 homes appeal to the target demographics of some shows? And why would Hulu increase their ad numbers. Couldn’t they just use this data as a means for increasing the price for ad time?
With all the Hulu negativity here, it seems like you and Robert are hoping it fails.
Not to forget Unique IP addresses, which might be different if the households are viewing it on the same wireless network (I believe the IP that gets captured is the IP of the modem.
And this is helping how? Until a proper system is put into place all of these little extra measurements are pointless.
FringeFan, if this system helps to sell ads online and count those viewers for purposes of ad sales, and the networks and the advertisers are OK with it, it will be proper enough.
As with Nielsen’s national TV panel where a small panel (~20K) projects out to 114.9 million homes and over 290 million, the smaller Internet panel will also project out to a much larger universe for purposes of advertising sales.
Bill: Hulu is but one online channel for the networks — a big one for NBC, FOX, ABC and some of the cable channels in those empires, but it is is just one channel. I can’t see why the networks wouldn’t want to have C3 on Hulu as well, but that might require a management change at Hulu.
Matt, I don’t hope Hulu fails, I really like Hulu, but increasingly I’m not sure it makes sense as a business for the investors who own it, especially if it doesn’t plan to start running more ads.
Everyone will never be included in measurement, and people don’t want to have their internet usage measured and reported. It’s one of the reasons Nielsen has had such a tough time getting people on the panel to begin with.
As for the Nielsen solution not solving anything, again, if it’s good enough for the networks and the advertisers (and I’m not 100% sure that is so), it solves it well enough for the people who matter.
If it doesn’t solve it well enough for you, you can always go raise some capital and try to launch a more Utopian measurement system!
Thanks Robert for a thorough explanation. I normally don’t like to complain about something until I have an idea of how it can be fixed, but I don’t know why it didn’t kick into gear this time.
My apologies.