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

Q&A Interview with Mike Greco - A+E

Mike Greco, EVP Strategic Insights at A+E networks, started his career in Nielsen which gave him a firm basis in research. From there he had a stellar career on the agency side before moving to MTV, Lifetime and subsequently after the merger, to A+E where he heads up all the business research functions. The business of television has certainly changed since his Nielsen days. In this interview, Mike talks about A+E’s plans, the differences between the agency side and the network side of the business, C3 and commercial measurement, connected TVs, the next generation of researchers and also offers some predictions of the media landscape over the next few years.

The five videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                    Length (in minutes)

Background                              (6:24)

A+E. Cross Platform                 (7:15)

Age / Gender and STB Data      (2:09)

Agencies and Metrics                (5:18)

Predictions; Next Generation     (2:58)   

Mike Greco, EVP Strategic Insights, A+E Networks talks to Charlene Weisler about his background in this 6:24 minute video:


Charlene Weisler talks to Mike Greco about his work at A+E and his Cross Platform research efforts in this 7:15 minute video:

  
Mike Greco talks to Charlene Weisler about age and gender measurement and set top box data in this 2:09 minute video:


Charlene Weisler interviews Mike Greco, EVP Strategic Insights, about advertising agencies and the media metrics that will be most relevant in today's media environment. This video is 5:18 minutes:


Mike Greco, EVP Strategic Insights, A+E Networks talks to Charlene Weisler about the next generation of researchers as well as offers some predictions for the future of media in this 2:58 minute video:

Pod Behavior - And How to Modify It

This is an article I wrote for Mediapost in November 2007 which is still very timely today. The informationn contained in this article will form a good backdrop to a future post - an interview with Daniel Fischer. Stay tuned....

Pod Behavior - And How to Modify It
by Charlene Weisler


AS THE INDUSTRY FOCUSES ON commercial ratings, my company has embarked on a series of research initiatives that shed light on viewer behaviors in and out of pods. Some of our preliminary conclusions are eye-opening and challenge commonly held industry beliefs.

While "C3" " (average commercial with three days of playback) is on the top of everyone's mind, "C3" is fast becoming irrelevant. This is really just an interim step to exact minute. To that end, we have begun to explore behavior within the commercial pods on a minute-by-minute basis to see if there are any patterns that can be tracked and strategically exploited.

Questions asked: Is there a pattern to pod performance? And if so, is it standardized and therefore modifiable? What can be done to mitigate pod erosion and speed rating recovery through the pod?

Using Nielsen N-Power total day, minute by minute demographic ratings, we examined ten networks - five with a target demo of A25-54 and five targeting W25-54. The time frame was four months of the past year - one month of each quarter to take into account any seasonality. Each minute was tagged as majority program, promo or commercial. Pod placement was added. We then compared the last majority program minute to the individual commercial pod minutes through the pod until the first few back-to-program minutes.

Here is what we have found:
• All networks that we examined lost audience going into the pod -- some to a greater extent.
• Generally speaking, commercial pod performance across all these networks have a similar pattern -- an initial deep drop in the first minute (A), another drop in the second minute (B), then a leveling off in performance until a gradual recovery (often, but not always) back to pre-break levels.
• The leveling off in erosion from the "C" position to the end of the pod was notable and might indicate a level of commitment to the program tantamount to affection or engagement. It also says that if a network can hold a viewer in the first two minutes of the pod, it will substantially improve the rest of the pod performance.
• The frequency of the breaks in combination with the lengths of the breaks impacts the level and degree of ratings erosion. In the networks that we examined, we found that longer duration/fewer interruptions generally hold audiences better than shorter/more frequent breaks. Younger-skewing networks may have different patterns of viewing.
• There is no difference in the rating of a promo in the "A" position and an ad in the "A" position. But this does not mean that we advocate replacing promos in A with ads. We are currently experimenting with promo creative that can help improve "A" position performance and thus improve the performance of the entire pod.

Next steps: . Among the many ideas to deal with pod performance include focusing on hard starts and modifying our promo creative based on findings in brain behavior research. It is clear from this preliminary study that we need to concentrate on improving the performance of the "A" position as much as possible because the lower the loss into A, into B, the less the overall loss for the entire pod.
Stay tuned....