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This sounds a lot like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house starting in September. The very idea that NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp/Fox, Viacom/MTV, CBS, Disney/ABC and Discovery are forming a consortium to challenge the dominant force in TV audience measurement gives rise to all sorts of scenarios. Can’t you just imagine this conversation happening among the moguls?
Jeff Zucker: “Les and Bob and Chase, I need a better number for my new show Mercy. NBC can’t get beat by Univision again.”
Les Moonves: “I’ll let you artificially boost that, if you give Mentalist the win for Thursday.”
Bob Iger: “If we do that, then I want to take Sunday night…”
Chase Carey: “Well then, considering the huge license fee we’re paying on House to NBCU, Jeff, I need to really triumph in that time slot.”
And so on… ad nauseum.
C’mon, these are the kind of con men who, if you ask them what time it is, you still have to check your watch. And at the same time make sure they’re not pickpocketing your wallet. They’ve always been adept at manipulating numbers. (Ain’t that right, all you net profit participants?) And don’t even get me started on the fact this is yet another example of these supposed competitors forming a cartel.
According to the Financial Times, the Big Media networks have roped in top advertisers like Procter & Gamble and AT&T and Unilever into their scheme. “The involvement of such big names highlights how urgently advertisers feel the need for better information to justify ads that run across multiple media platforms,” the FT writes, noting that media agencies GroupM, owned by WPP, and Starcom MediaVest are also joining. ”People briefed on the plans expected the consortium to award contracts for measuring set-top box data and cross-platform viewers across TV and digital sources as early as the 4th quarter of this year.”
But TV insiders are telling me “there is no way on earth” these companies can launch a rival to Nielsen across three screens by September. “The cable MSOs have been talking about set top box data for ever and they’ve never done anything with it and can’t. It’s not standardized for processing it, and the ad agencies wont pay for it till they see what’s in it. Big Media wants new data for three screens too: TV, mobile and online. And what if they get it? They’re going to change the currency too? Give me a break. No way it can happen. For all Nielsen’s faults, at least it’s third party.”
So, after sparring unsuccessfully with Nielsen over the years, especially after it replaced print diaries with remote controls which led to allegations of undercounting, Big Media will now try to put the TV ratings leader out of business. Just because they can.
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How is their metric going to be significantly different from Nielsen to warrant us to care? This is gonna blow up in their face the second Nielsen and their new scheme comes out with two entirely different numbers for the same day. At the very least this will spur Nielsen to make some changes, but I hope this new idea doesn’t take off.
This is crap. So is Nielsen’s monopoly.
Sure, the Networks joining to form a new ratings service isn’t a good idea.
But Nielsen is CRAP. Or if it isn’t, their methods are so foreign that they’re difficult to believe. I’ve never met a “Nielsen family,” and neither has anyone I’ve ever talked to about it. I have regular conversations with friends complaining that certain shows are struggling, wondering if it at all has to do with the ratings giant and their outdated methodology.
So I cheer this decision to look for a new option. I hope it’s not a joint network ratings service, but even that would be a welcome change from Nielsen.
How about putting on some shows we want to see?
wait. I just checked. Its not april fools day nikki!
This is a byproduct of Nielson’s ever frustrating mediocrity who’s narrow sampling has been for too long, flawed data that has compelled advertisers to spend billions of dollars they had no business spending. If you are a Nielson believer, you’ve been duped forever. However, allowing the Studio’s to be responsible for their own rating data is the classic fox in the hen house and you can be assured of collusion, as if that doesn’t happen now. I’d suggest the landscape open up to independent competition. If we can all be screwed by three “independent” credit rating companies, why not three “independent” TV ratings systems. Let everyone tout their numbers and let advertisers rely on their own subjective opinions as to the creative associated with the shows and not specious, indefensible data. Particularly when Networks can no longer sustain “make goods” because their margins are so narrow. But where is the FCC on this issue? With the delivery systems associated with Cable and Sattelite viewing data exists, it’s simply considered proprietary for reasons that have to do with money and CPM’s. The idea that DVR patterns will clarify things is laughable because the data is already available but Fox owns Satellites and Warner Bros owns Cable systems and they’re already compromised. It’s all bad and ironically, it’s the advertisers who have forever been abused.
Why not? We put the bankers in charge of their own bailout… Why not let the federal government take over ratings and assign it to the FCC? I’m sure it will end well, since the government does such a heckuva job maintaining impartiality and correctly calculating things…
If a media-buying firm uses these numbers to justify a buy, the advertiser will fire them. This will never amount to anything.
Great points on this collusion and why it won’t, but I’m hoping this will hasten the death of Nielsen’s diary system across the entire nation and not just in the biggest markets. Local People Meters may have their faults, but the pencil-and-paper method isn’t much better.
nielsen is a busted system. who cares – let them talk
Who watches the commercials on TV anymore? Network commercials died and the Remote Control is the device they were buried in. Sounds like they’re putting together a model to force advertisers into blind buidding based in theory on their own subjective “analysis” and “research.” The advertiser would be the movie exhibitor in such an equation. It seems to me it’s possible to consider that the foreseeable future of TV is a synthesis of PREMIERE SHOWCASING quality programming without commercials; single advertisers with limited commercial interruption
for single programs, or blocks of programming, maybe even a whole evening; and LIVE events the numbers in advance which are reasoned hunches at best, at worse guesstimates. When do you CHOOSE to look at network TV commercials? When you’re stuck in an airport or on line at the bank; when you’re a child; when you can’t find the remote; when you’re in a hospital bed maybe…, etc. (I knew there was a reason why there’s no paging system on Time Warner’s remote the way there is on a telephone! Foiled again!) It seems to me then that even the much-vaunted 18-49 demographic (or whatever it is now) conceivably is “wishful thinking” “wing and a prayer” stuff being pitched to Madison Avenue. Today’s televisions don’t even work efficiently without remote control ACTION. Are you gonna market to the poor still stuck with outdated models? In New York City you can’t even get a picture without cable. So the largest market, without a remote control, is off the table for advertisers.
Although – it is true – nobody’s changing the channel when they’re having sex – as exhibited, for instance, by Henry Luce’s TimeWarner and Murdoch’s Direct TV…
which reminds me…I’m out of MaxiPads…what can I say? I’m a multi-tasker. Sue me. Sue me like you mean it.
Like everybody else do you think the guys who came up with this watch their own commercials?
While Nielsen has its problems, and that competition would be a good thing, in order to force them into improving their systems, I have a problem with the networks forming their own ratings measurement doohickey.
My question, what are the advertisers doing? If they’re not happy with Nielsen, and there’s no way they’ll trust the network’s own stats, why don’t they just band together, start up their own thing, or, better yet, several competing ratings monitors, and then maybe get some facts sans spin.
They advertisers would do better to pressure the networks to stop alienating the majority of the potential viewers with the bullshit they broadcast.
This seems like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real problem is that Network (and TV overall, including Cable) has been bleeding viewers for decades, probably dating back to the 1970′s, well before cable, the internet, and everything else. Beverly Hillbillies pulled in 60 million viewers at it’s peak, the A-Team not even twenty years later pulled in only 20 million at it’s peak — before Fox was launched or cable/satellite became anything other than a minor niche for wealthy early adopters.
Male and older viewers have been ignored. I don’t think Networks, studios, and the like can supply a broad range of viewers because Hollywood’s creative people are unable to make broadly appealing shows, even with arguably the best acting, writing, direction and effects/design ever. Mad Men is a wonderfully written show, beautifully acted, fantastic sets, and only 1.5 million people watched it last year.
Why not make the commercial the show? I.E. scripted entertainment in serial content, with the ad “baked into the plot” ala Tom Hanks “Castaway” and given away free on the internet for Ipods and phones, laptops, or burning to DVD? This would of course kill Network and Cable TV for everything but live events and cheap reality stuff. But that’s my guess.
Advertisers under a “give-away” download scenario could collect demographic information directly, according to their needs, and estimate campaign effectiveness without intermediaries like Nielsen OR Big Media.
Of course, the advertisers using this model would be broad-based consumer products companies appealing to a mass audience/consumers. They’d have to shoot in a low-cost place outside LA. But it could work.
I say let them come up with the technology but hire and independent respected firm to run it – something like Price Waterhouse Cooper. The Nielsen system is ridiculous.
Also I strongly object to advertising being “baked in” to the show – not just because I’m an actor. I just watched some Bollywood films where they do that ALOT – it really takes you completely out of the story, and makes you feel like you’re being treated like sheep. Like, here suck on this pap. Recent blatant advertising in movies like Star Trek did the same thing. If Hugh Laurie starts compulsively sipping from a Pepsi while solving a medical case – my tv would be turned off so fast. It would be strictly Netflix oldies but goodies for the rest of my life.
New technology has changed the game so much, the traditional ratings system is on it’s way out one way or another. Ratings show that (for example) FOX news viewers are substantially older than their rivals. FOX also gets higher ratings. While a lot of people look at this and just say that “older viewers are more conservative”, they miss the REAL point- older viewers still watch TV in a “traditional” way, while younger viewers “timeshift”, and “download” and “stream”- all the things that render the current ratings systems obsolete…
TV is rapidly going the way of newspapers. More and more people are getting shows via their computer instead of the flat screen. I suspect that even if the consortium tried to spin the numbers they would show exactly what Nielsen shows, viewers are leaving in droves. Companies will soon realize that spending millions on a media on the decline doesn’t make sense.
Yes, the Nielson system has been a antiquated monopoly for far too long now and just because endeavors to implement a rival system have failed doesn’t necessarily translate into a faulty premise.
Anyone working with SEO or Social Media knows that the Nielson’s have been a corrupt data system for years, so it’s about time some worthy alternatives emerge.
Now I’m not necessarily an advocate of letting the wolves (moguls) organize the henhouse, but who else has the financial capital/incentive in this economy to fund an alternative? Perhaps with enough oversight — by the media, by industry insiders, media watchdog groups — they pressure for an objective standard.
As the TV business transforms around us, keeping your Nielsen ratings where they need to be to remain salable is now a multiple platform play, and the only people that have not changed the way they do business are Nielsen and the agencies (who are sooooo in kahootz, it ain’t even funny anymore).
As someone who actually works in the television research division of a network, I have to say this is all pretty much a day late and a dollar short.
Nielsen killed Indie 103.1 FM here in LA. It was a sad, sad day for radio station that was loved and lauded. Where else could you find such talent all in the same place? Everyone I knew listened to Indie. It launched numerous Foreign musical talent in the U.S., like Lily Allen, Wolfmother, and the Arctic Monkeys. Where else could you hear Steve Jones, Henry Rollins, Joe Escalante, Dave Navarro, Brent Bolthouse, Danny Masterson, and The Suicide Girls all in one place?
It was fresh, amazing, wanted, no – needed, and Nielsen killed it.
Nielsen has been trying to modernize it’s methods, but it’s sampling is simply too wide. The coastal states do not go for what the middle states want. Regional sampling proves that. Age sampling shows that older people are watching first run, everyone else is watching DVR or internet.
The old way of selling at the Upfronts to the auto industry is a dinosaur. Every year the networks spend cash like W putting on a war. It’s a huge party and a huge waste. But what else to do besides put on the old dog and pony show? In its heyday,whichever one you want to pick, TV promised advertisers millions of eyeballs at one place at one time. They can’t promise that anymore.
“We’re in a transition”. How many times have we heard that from how many different sources? No one knows where it’s going. Honestly. Truthfully.
Well-loved shows are killed off because of ratings every year. Because they couldn’t catch on fast enough. Yet complete crap stays on the air because the numbers mysteriously speak. Every season great concepts for shows are butchered and Frankensteined in the hopes they will appeal to the magic audience that boosts the numbers. Every survey says that audiences are sick of reality TV, yet it mysteriously stays on the air like a National freak show.
I agree that no advertiser will respect numbers actually given to them by the Network. They balk even now when we run our own numbers. It would have to be an independent outside source. Nielsen will have to completely overhaul, again, how it runs it’s numbers. That said, let’s be careful and make sure they’re not just putting red food coloring in the meat to make it look fresher.
It’s like what the gov’t did to COLAs (cost of living allowance) when they were rising too fast and they wanted to curtail the cost… they redefined the cost of living to exclude gas and food!
So, here the networks want to redefine ratings in order to get advertisers to pay more bucks.
Do you really think the advertisers will fall for it?
And if they do, then they deserve to have their wallet lifted…
If you want to know why ratings are falling, look no further than the post by Analyst. Until Hollywood stops tolerating bigots like him and injecting all the shows with viewpoints that only appeal to 22% of the population – self-described liberals – the other 78% are going to find their entertainment somewhere that doesn’t insult their views.
What happened to teh idea that Tivo was going to be providing ratings.
They certainly have the samples, and they can probably dig VERY deep into the data (down to what ad was actually watched).
@ “Reality” Check: Uh, what the everlocing fuck are you talking about? What bigotry?
Hmmm. Everloving would be the right way to spell that word, lol