The Big Push to Local Impressions-Based Campaigns by the TVB

Just because local TV has historically transacted on ratings, doesn’t mean that we need to continue to do it that way. Why buy and sell on ratings when there are better metrics to use? 

The TVB has embarked on a huge initiative to change the way local TV is transacted. They call it the Local TV Impressions Campaign which is dedicated to move the industry from ratings-based to impressions-based. To me, it is hardly revolutionary and is arguably prudent. 

Why Impressions?

The reason to do this is simple. “The bottom line is this,” explained Steve Lanzano, President and CEO, TVB, “All other medium are being transacted on impressions, even network TV. In order for us to be able to integrate all of the assets we have, whether it’s over the top, streaming, websites, etc, and put together an integrated package for an advertiser, we need to go from percentages to actual impressions.”

Lanzano believes that we have reached the tipping point to make the move to transact on impressions, especially in a world on the threshold of automated buying. This move to impressions will, “facilitate automated buying and give us some real traction,” he noted. In addition, the move to impressions will enable local TV to become more targeted by placing more data on top of the impressions.

Change Anxiety

And yet, despite the soundness of the idea, the local industry has been slow to move to impressions. “We know that people don’t like to change,” admitted Hadassah Gerber, Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer, TVB, “That is probably the biggest challenge. As Kettering said, ‘The world hates change but it is the only thing that has brought us progress.’” She noted that while most video platforms are currently trading on impressions, local television is not.  This creates a friction point among buyers who have to do the conversion themselves to integrate local into a larger buy.

In agencies, “planning has always been based on ratings but we bought on impressions,” she stated. And today, advertisers and agencies are ready to standardize based on impressions. When the 4As membership was polled as to what was the best option for currency across channels, seven out of ten said it was impressions. “We are trying to make things as easy as possible for agencies to buy local television,” she concluded.

Moving Towards a Common Metric

“There are hidden audiences that advertisers want to access,” Gerber explained. Unfortunately, the reported ratings in local are only out to the tenth decimal point - not fine enough to realize the actual audiences that may be viewing. Oftentimes the rating is reported as zero. “They see zeros when they want to buy and they can’t buy programs when they are zero and they see zeros on their posts even though there could be audiences there. With impressions there are always audiences there”

The argument for impressions rests on the following. “Point number one is that this facilitates cross platform measurement,” she noted. “Point number two is uncovering the hidden audiences,” that may be reported as zero when, in fact, there is audience there. With impressions, advertisers can buy more programs, increase their reach and know that they will have greater accuracy for program performance. Stations are also interested in moving towards impressions because they have digital properties that can be linked to on air using impressions.

For those agencies that still fear the move to impressions, Gerber has some encouraging advice. “Buying on impressions does not preclude planning on GRPs.” That may be the impetus some agencies need to make the move.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Nielsen 's Local Measurement Initiatives

In a media environment when local is more of a factor than ever, Nielsen has stepped up its local measurement capabilities with a range of added offerings. Since the end of the paper diary that transitioned to electronic measurement, Nielsen has also added various datasets and expanded the sample. They have also added more set top box data to the local market sample and is in the process of formalizing the addition of out-of-home viewership data to better monitor the full viewer experience no matter where they are. 

Measuring Individuals and Helping Stations

This has all helped strengthen and expand data culled on the household level. Now Nielsen is focusing on improving the collection of data for individuals with the most recent announcement of a Nielsen partnership with MBuy. MBuy is a cross platform, data centric, consumer-tracking service that enables advertisers the ability to connect with consumers throughout the purchase lifecycle. The MBUY partnership demonstrates Nielsen’s commitment to furthering local sales capabilities by enabling the targeting of individual consumers rather than households through the use of Nielsen persons data. This enhancement of local market measurement will enable agencies to forecast, deliver, and steward their buys.

These local improvements, along with a move to Live +1 which more closely aligns with consumer behavior viewing habits and national measurement, also deliver a lift to stations’ revenue goals. This provides, according to Steve Lanzano, President and Chief Executive Officer, TVB, “more GRPs for stations to sell.” A win win. 

2019 Nielsen Initiatives

And there is more good news in the pipeline. Kelly Abcarian, Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture for Nielsen, noted a range of future innovations that the industry can expect in 2019. She explained, “Only Nielsen can provide Comprehensive, Accurate, and In-Depth local audience measurement to successfully monetize ad inventory and inform content decisions. In 2019, Nielsen will integrate Portable People Meter™ (PPM) technology into Local TV measurement in 44 DMAs. This brings new out of home viewing into the audience estimates and increases stability and reduces reported zeros.” She also noted that in the remaining Set Meter markets, Nielsen is “combining its currency grade panel data with return path data and other electronic measurement from millions of homes across multiple providers. “

Actual Viewership vs Opportunity to View

One of the challenges in measuring individuals is to ascertain whether the individual actually viewed the programming or ad versus their opportunity to view. Nielsen is making the effort to assure advertisers that their ads have actually been viewed. Abcarian explained, “Advertisers pay for viewers who actually view their ads, not for people who have a chance to view ads. Nielsen captures and reports actual viewers. Utilizing best-in-class panels Nielsen is uniquely positioned to deliver to the marketplace persons level viewing estimates, informing both buyers and sellers who viewed their content and ads.”

She stated that other measurement providers deliver only the “opportunity to view” because they are using household level estimates and therefore include the viewing of all the people that live in the home, whether they were viewing or not. “Simply put, opportunity to view would provide data on those that had a chance to view. This can grossly overstate estimates,” she concluded.

Now, with the advancement of addressable and targeted advertising, local has become vitally important to advertisers. With all of these Nielsen initiatives, it is now possible to more fully maximize the value of local inventory for both advertisers and station owners. The future is bright … and green.

This article first appeared in MediaVIllage.com

More Local Measurement Improvements. Nielsen Replacing Local Live Stream Only Data with Live+1

In looking back at the past year, we have seen seismic change in Nielsen’s local market measurement capabilities, stemming from a focus on improvements from increased and varied datasets to sample expansion. Now, starting in July, Nielsen will measure local performance on Live+1, which more closely aligns with consumer behavior viewing habits and national measurement, providing, according to Steve Lanzano, President and Chief Executive Officer, TVB, “more GRPs for stations to sell.”

Overall Local Measurement Improvements

In 2017 alone, Nielsen local measurement evolved to an all-electronic measurement for all 210 DMAs, incorporated return path data into all markets including the 140 still served by paper diaries, expanded Scarborough consumer behavior data into 59 more local markets up from the current 151 DMAs, added Comcast, Dish and AT&T’s DIRECTV and U-Verse set top box data, and added portable people meter data to enable local out-of-home measurement across all sized markets. Nielsen also announced that they would expand their panel by 15,000 TV audience meters in 7,000 homes across the 140 markets currently measured by local TV paper diaries as part of their effort to completely retire the diaries in early 2018.

Live+1 Measurement

Most recently, Nielsen responded to an industry request, as represented by the 4As and the TVB, to replace local live stream only data with Live+1, resulting, as Nielsen noted, in a more comprehensive metric of how consumers are viewing local content, especially as it reflects the daily and time-shifted viewing habits of consumers.

Monthly data will be available starting in July and daily reports (reporting on each Live+27 hour viewing window) will begin with the September reporting period (end of August.) The data will be available on all third-party media buying systems including Mediaocean, Strata, and WideOrbit, to ensure Live-Same Day and Live+1 data streams are reliably delivered and accessible via their respective platforms. Live+1 includes all live viewing plus any delayed viewing conducted within 24 hours of a program’s telecast including DVR playback as well as viewing in the buffer, a form of playback without setting the recording through the DVR.

For Nielsen, Live+1 more closely represents the new viewing habits of today’s households, where consumers are starting programs but then pausing them and finishing them at their own pace and viewing programs on other devices that do not follow traditional program airing schedules.

Industry Reaction

This has been met with a positive response by the industry as a way to better integrate local and national performance results. Kathy Doyle, Executive Vice President, Local Investment, MAGNA Global, noted that this initiative will move the needle for local. “At MAGNA, we have been exploring the possibility of moving Local TV investment to Live +1 currency for some time.  We’re pleased that Nielsen will begin to provide the data stream and appreciate having the ability to utilize a currency that gets closer to national,” she stated.

Where do we go from here? Lanzano doesn’t want to speculate on the next metric. But, “with advancement in technology and media measurement, it could be something very different than current data streams such as total audience measurement across all distribution channels and devices that a specific piece of content runs across. And ATSC 3.0 will provide data and measurement as good as anything else out there,” he concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Secret Society Presents the Multi-Uses of Data

The Secret Society may not be so secret anymore since Steve Lanzano, President and CEO, TVB, gave it a shout out at the recent TVB Advertising Week event.  But some mystery still remains - the latest Secret Society meeting at the Turner offices in NYC was held in a non-descript conference room behind an unmarked door.

This meeting, which included presentations from Viacom, Hulu, NBCU and Turner, collected around a theme of data, audience targeting, addressability and branding. “Consumer choices are changing,” stated Mitch Oscar USIM’s Director, Advanced Television, “1975 was the first year that broadcast networks guaranteed age and gender in the uprfonts. Prior it was household guarantees. Now we look at households with people of a specific age, gender and behavioral characteristics.”

Viacom – Enabling a Currency of Fandom

Bryson Gordon, EVP Data Strategy at Viacom, gave a stirring presentation on fandom through the lens of data and analytics. He is relatively new to media, starting his career at McAfee where he used audience insights and segmentations to move that business from box software to subscription. From there he moved to Microsoft to build up ecommerce services. The similarities these companies have with media companies, he posits, are the patterns of deconstruction and cultivation. When you examine the audience data, Gordon explained, “The pattern of deconstruction concentrates on sub communities within a homogenous base. The pattern of cultivation concentrates on a community who often doesn't transact or behave as a community yet. You don't know you are in the club yet. You share attributes and behaviors that can be targeted but don't yet share a common purpose.” He concluded, “TV doesn't participate in that today. Legacy approach in TV is failing to keep pace with the advancements within audience demographic traction and cultivation.”

His work in Viacom is to insure that all marketing efforts target the right audience. “The audience we believe we attract may not be our audience at all,” he added.  When Microsoft introduced their newest PC, they initially thought that hipsters who owned Apple devices would be their target. But using very advanced data science they found that the hipster focus was wrong. “Women who had two kids under the age of ten who lived in Midwest and who voted for Romney would be the target for this device,” he explained. “The good news,” he assured us, “is that data science is transforming TV. We can fuse data sets, the hygiene of the data is so much better than years ago and data science is way more sophisticated.” And the future for data in TV is bright. “There is a fundamental democratization of data science which allows us to take incredible sets of data and do precise analysis of fan segments,” he stated. At Viacom, he assured, “We plan with advertiser to understand custom target, inboard the data set, offer 17 predictive models and optimize on ongoing basis. We can do it without creating liability and we are transparent. This is leading to a new way of selling and a currency of fandom. TV can now be delivered in a variety of ways with both a custom audience and custom creative.”

Turner  - Data, Technology and Analytics Lead to Opportunities for Buyers

Major network groups like NBCU and Turner are focusing their efforts on data driven sales solutions. Larry Allen, VP Ad Innovation and Programmatic at Turner, presented an overview of two innovative approaches to buying media using technology and advanced data analytics - Turner Targeting Now and Turner Audience Now – through its Turner Ignite initiative.  

Part of the challenge of evolving to a more data driven approach is historical. “It is jarring to say you've been buying one way for 20 years and now you buy in a new way,” explained Allen. With Turner’s solutions the client can supply any custom data set they want. Dan Aversano, SVP Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions Turner, said, “We will use any dataset. We are data agnostic and can achieve consistency across solutions. We build a consistency of metrics without having a currency.”  “But seasonality is factor,” cautions Allen, “as is viewing between platforms and modality. Lots of touch points create a new dynamic. There is the issue of data freshness and audience changes for quarter to quarter. So we plan the impact quarter by quarter for plan optimization.”

The next step for Turner is Addressable which is a careful process. Aversano explained, “All of this has to work within our traffic system. It is a challenge for us because TV is a giant jigsaw puzzle and all of our inventory has to sit together from the traffic, deal and proposal systems.”

Secret Society Takeaway

The application of innovative data-driven solutions appears to be gaining traction among the major media companies. Through the efforts of the Secret Society and other industry initiatives, the sharing of initiative techniques and solutions will hopefully lead to a standardization of processes for the industry at large. Let’s continue to keep the conversation flowing.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

Local Broadcast Ad Revenue Forecast 2017

The TVB hosted their annual Broadcast and Leadership Conference during Advertising Week, focusing on the value of broadcast TV and the local markets. What does the future hold for broadcast TV compared to digital? Steve Lanzano, President and CEO TVB, led off the event with an assessment of the role of digital and TV. Citing the recent Facebook measurement data controversy, he said, “Fraud, viewability, lack of third party digital verification – we take these things seriously. Marketers are now reassessing their level of participation in digital. I believe the shine is off the shiny new object. TV is still number one in influencing voters across the spectrum.” 

It is true that TV is currently a top influencer but how long will its dominance and ad revenue maintain?  Marci Ryvicker, Managing Director Wells Fargo, titled her presentation Broadcast Looks Healthy! “Despite,” she said, “what the stocks may be telling us.” According to Ryvicker, “Retransmission consent is a growing percentage of revenue and share of EBITA. Broadcast is a must see, must have asset and a key asset in this ecosystem. Broadcast will be in any successful skinny bundle. If TV doesn't matter, why is Trump raising $140 million and spending most of it on TV?”

But looking forward, she said that “Broadcast ratings are not expected to be very strong. Stations, though, are maintaining their share. The outlier is digital which is taking share from print but broadcast under performed in the stock market.”

Jack Myers, Media Ecologist, MyersBizNet, offered his forecasts for 2016 and 2017. Currently, 2016, with the Olympics and charged Presidential election, is proving to be a healthy market for TV. “More advertisers are looking at their digital expenditures,” Myers stated, and then added, “In the upfront, CPG moved back to TV from digital. It was a surprisingly strong upfront this year with CPM growth between 7% and 12% and first quarter scatter is strong so far.” Data is playing a major role, along with attribution. “There have been major shifts with data analytics at the core of decision making. We are incorporating more analytics into the process.”

Myers anticipates that local/national spot broadcast TV is projected to increase +12.5% in 2016 with legacy media garnering +11.8% and digital +25%. But the picture changes in 2017 as the total percent change declines -12.4% driven by a legacy media loss of -13.5% and a digital gain of +5%. 

The trends in consumer usage portend a more difficult sales environment for traditional television in the longer term, but television executives are exploiting digital opportunities at both the local and national level. As Myers stated, “There can be a bigger upside and better use of digital inventory in local markets. Local TV and radio have extraordinary opportunities to tap into local shopper dollars. And mobile holds significant upside potential.” 

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com