Disney, NBC Wrestle With Web Video Ratings
LOS ANGELES (
) -- To the overnight ratings and much of the general public, "cable" still refers to a service providing television channels, not the cord linking a TV to untrackable Internet content. With each season, however, that definition gets a rewrite.
Fall television programming is hitting the airwaves after a summer in which market-research firm
comScore
(SCOR) - Get Report
found that 158 million U.S. Internet users streamed online video in July alone. Though the 121 million "
(GOOG) - Get Report
sites" (read: YouTube) viewers skew toward casual programming, the 38 million who visited NBC, ABC and Fox's joint venture,
Hulu
, are tormenting both networks and advertisers by watching standard TV fare while contributing little to its scant advertisers and nothing to the ratings.
This is where the
Nielsen Co.
comes in, albeit at a relatively glacial pace. The ratings giant just wrapped its mind around on-demand viewing in 2006 -- embedding code and audio watermarks into on-demand content and rolling views of that content into commercial ratings -- and is tiptoeing forward with a 363-home test of its "Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement" Internet software meter starting this year.
"The PC by its very name is a personal device," says Scott Brown, senior vice president of digital platforms and media strategy for Nielsen. "One of the big questions has been 'Can we install software on people's machines?' We've been pleased to learn thus far that people are enthusiastic about it."
The biggest problem with Nielsen's latest undertaking is its timetable. Installation in 375 ratings homes isn't expected to be completed until next year, with the program's kickoff slated for 2011. With roughly $70 billion in advertising currently hinging on Nielsen ratings, and untold fortunes waiting to be mined online, Nielsen's constituents want to fast-forward the process a bit.
Though it claims it won't be an alternative to Nielsen, the newly formed Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement may provide a multimillion-dollar fire under its posterior. Comprising media companies, sponsors and ad reps, the group said earlier this month that it plans to fund studies on old-school and multiplatform TV ratings measurements, and has opened its arms and coffers to proposals from various research firms, like
TiVo
(TIVO) - Get Report
and
Arbitron
( ARB). If there's any question about where the funding will come from, just ask group founders including
Time Warner
(TWX)
,
Walt Disney's
(DIS) - Get Report
Disney-ABC division,
Interpublic Group's
(IPG) - Get Report
Mediabrands,
News Corp.
(NWSA) - Get Report
,
Viacom
(VIA) - Get Report
,
Procter & Gamble
(PG) - Get Report
,
Unilever
(UN) - Get Report
,
AT&T
(T) - Get Report
,
WPP
(WPPGY)
,
CBS
(CBS) - Get Report
Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group and
General Electric's
(GE) - Get Report
NBC Universal.
"Existing systems are incapable of accurately measuring the media habits of our audience across today's multiplicity of platforms," said Jeff Zucker, president and chief executive of NBC Universal, in a statement earlier this month announcing the coalition's launch. "As an industry, we can't afford not to do this, because if we can't measure our audience accurately, we can't sell it."
In other words, they want their money and ratings, and they want them now. There are a lot of episodes of "The Daily Show" and "30 Rock" that are going to be streamed this fall by viewers who increasingly aren't home at the times networks and advertisers deem most convenient. Nielsen and its ad clients seem bent on getting cable companies and Web sites to offer as much, if not the same, ad content in its online programs as in its regular offerings. If they and their newest product can't get the job done, however, the industry may push for a mid-season replacement.
"This has been an important objective for our company for quite some time," Brown says. "We don't have any special insight into the coalition other than what we read."
-- Reported by Jason Notte in Boston.
Jason Notte is a reporter for TheStreet.com. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Esquire.com, Time Out New York, The Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, Metro newspaper and the Colorado Springs Independent.
