Where Are We Now: Tentpole Measurement

Every Awards Season, the media industry likes to take its own temperature by seeing how well the telecasts do in the ratings. These major award shows, along with the Super Bowl, are the tentpoles of the early broadcast season. It becomes a game to see what’s gone up, what’s gone down, where some of that audience went, and what other platforms were dominant for executions. This year is no different, with outlets reporting on the decrease in Oscar ratings as soon as 9am the next day.One of metrics a lot of people pay attention to is the social chatter behind the Oscars. Like everything during Awards Season, the Oscars are a big night on social media, with branded hashtags, executions meant to inspire social commentary (see: Samsung Selfie), and record high numbers every year. And for every execution, there are companies ready to record how they went.Four years ago, Trendrr, a company that I was part of at the time  (and was subsequently purchased by Twitter) was one of those companies. Recode precursor AllThingsD was on hand to record how the set-up of a project like the Oscars actually works. As Peter Kafka noted at the time, it was “a combination of art and science,” with some of the terms, like then-nominee “Drive” being more of a guestimate than a clear definitive fact. At the time, the three companies in the social measurement space (Bluefin Labs and SocialGuide) being the others, also provided numbers for awards. This gave the marketplace an opportunity to pick the number that fit them best, or, the one that told the best story. Having multiple options allowed the marketplace to decide what story it wanted to tell and how it could tell it.Where there used to be multiple independent vendors on the scene, today the major social platforms put out their own numbers. Twitter, in conjunction with Nielsen Social, releases its number along with their proprietary impressions number for each award show and major event. Facebook, the only platform with a full corpus of data, does the same. Third party vendors exist, but they either entered the marketplace after Nielsen or Twitter acquired the three earlier companies or refined their methodology over time to incorporate television and do not have comparable numbers.Other vendors have entered the marketplace, such as ListenFirst Media and Shareablee, and their metrics have gained some traction thanks to partnerships with publications like Variety and Cynopsis. Networks will cite their data and they have good marketplace traction due to their inclusion of multiple data sources (public Facebook and Instagram in particular) but Nielsen and Twitter have staked a claim as the primary source for data around executions for these large events.With the measurement marketplace limited, the days of guestimation over the way things are tracked may be behind us, but with the confirmed metrics comes less choice. Facebook will soon be joining the Nielsen Social number, which will allow for the third party numerical validation that both it and the marketplace needs. It is unlikely that most measurement firms will follow suit and purchase the full Facebook corpus given the rumored hefty price tag of the Facebook/DataSift offering, so Nielsen Social will serve as that absolute number.Social measurement, be it tentpoles, traditional linear broadcasts, or OTT streaming series, is not what it used to be. Where there were a variety of new firms, the traditional legacy players have acquired what they needed and are measuring in the ways that best complement their existing strategies. With maturity, the space has frankly become a little boring.But that boring is okay. If these newer offerings, however legacy they may be, have the full Facebook offering, and if the information we’re seeing from services that have only the partial offering is correct, the breadth Facebook’s data is going to change everything. And that’s exciting.