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

TVB Forward 2017: In a Drifting Landscape, Local Plunges Ahead

Local television—and its ability to adapt to an increasingly digitized ecosystem—has become quite the hot topic. 

At the recent TVB Forward 2017 Conference, industry experts shared their views on how local broadcast television can not only adapt, but thrive. Local TV acts as a powerful influence in communities because of its trust among viewers, its connectedness to the community, and its ability to forge closer relationships with brands.

TVB Forward 2017 was full of highlights—from new measurement protocols and adapting social media to local TV brands to ascertaining the financial health of certain important sales categories.

Toward a Better Measurement

TV measurement capabilities are certainly seeing meaningful strides forward: The big announcement at the start of the meeting was that Live Viewing +1 will be the new local currency to measure delivery. This should more closely match local TV with national measurement and has the capacity to post additional impressions to help meet delivery goals. The Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) has also been working with the Media Rating Council on a best practices document for conducting an audit.

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

What Is the Future of Pay TV?

What do we really mean when we say “pay TV”? To some, it means programming or networks that are commercial-free, available on any platform, and require the viewer to pay a fee. To others, it includes ad-supported TV channels offered through a multi-channel video program distributor (MVPD). It might also include newer innovations like video-on-demand (VOD) and streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) programming as part of a subscription service.

In sum, pay TV is evolving into an amalgam of networks and services that are typically supported by ads or subscriptions, and its definition keeps changing as technology and access to content expands. The generally accepted definition, however, comes from the Television Bureau of Advertising: “Home television programming for which the viewer pays by the program or by the month. Pay television includes both over-the-air transmission (with scrambled signals) and cable transmission (pay cable).”

A Downward Trend

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

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

Q&A with Stacey Lynn Schulman - TVB

Stacey Lynn Schulman discovered research through college internships. In fact, she is a great proponent of internships as a way for students to explore different career opportunities and to make important contacts for employment after graduation. She launched her career at the rep firm Katz Television, followed by stints at CBS, ad agencies, Turner and ultimately at the TVB where she is CRO. Her responsibilities include supporting the marketing and sales efforts of member television stations across all of their platforms.

In this informative interview Schulman talks about her career, digital mobile, social media, national and local efforts, research trends, big data and what the future might look like for television stations and their multi-platform efforts. And she offers a way to view CBS (and other broadcast networks) that is not impacted by any MVPD contract negotiation.

The six videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                                 Length (in minutes)

Background                                                        (7:03)

TVB                                                                   (10:07)

Digital Mobile                                                    (4:05)

Local Digital Efforts                                          (7:50)

Predictions                                                         (5:17)

Good Data vs More Data                                 (6:16)

Charlene Weisler interviews TVB's CRO Stacey Lynn Schulman who talks about her background in this 7:03 minute video:

 

Stacey Lynn Schulman talks to Charlene Weisler about the TVB, its mission and projects in this 10:07 minute video:

 

Charlene Weisler interviews TVB's CRO Stacey Lynn Schulman who talks about Digital Mobile and its ability to get over the air television anywhere in this 4:05 minute video:

 

CW: It sounds like Digital Mobile gives all Time Warner cable customers access to CBS whether or not it is available on our channel line-up.

SLS: Yes. The important piece about Digital Mobile TV is that consumers do not need to feel victimized by television delivery mechanisms like cable or satellite choices.  They can still receive over-the-air TV stations -- and all of their digital subchannels (some of which aren't being carried currently by cable or satellite providers) -- by purchasing a regular antenna at their local electronics store or by purchasing what we call a "dongle" (a mobile antenna) from Amazon.com.  The dongle connects easily to a cell phone or tablet computer and allows the consumer to view over-the-air television signals, for free, anywhere.  No WIFI required.

 
 

In this 7:50 minute video, Stacey Lynn Schulman talks to Charlene Weisler about local digital efforts by the TVB:

 

Looking ahead in the media landscape, Stacey Lynn Schulman descibes possible new innovations and opportunities for stations. This interview video by Charlene Weisler is 5:15 minutes:

 

In this final video, Charlene Weisler interviews TVB's CRO Stacey Lynn Schulman who talks about Big Data and the conundrum of good data compared to more data in this 6:16 minute video: