The Currency Race Is Just Starting, Says Comscore’s Frank Friedman
Frank Friedman (photo coutresy of Comscore)
The bumpy road to multiple measurement currencies for television is still open, according to Frank Friedman, who joined Comscore as Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Measurement last month.
As streaming has changed the television landscape, a number of upstart companies have tried to harness big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs to promise a multi-currency future. Hope for that future dimmed in some quarters in recent weeks as the Media Rating Council accredited Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel methodology.
Shortly thereafter, Nielsen, which has long dominated the industry, reached a new deal with Paramount Global. Paramount had balked at signing a new Nielsen deal and was getting audience data from Videoamp instead. Many in the industry had been watching to see what would happen if another big media company went out of contract with Nielsen at the same time.
But Friedman told TVRev that Nielsen’s two wins don’t mean the industry’s push to have multiple providers and multiple currencies is over.
“No one has game, set and match in the environment that we’re in, which is constant change,” he said.
Friedman said that with Nielsen moving to Big Data+Panel, it’s a new ballgame.
“In the past, there was legacy and everyone else. Now everyone’s in the same boat. There isn’t a standard any more. There are no more alternative currencies. Everyone’s going to have to change.”
Friedman said he knows change. In previous jobs, Friedman said, he has been successful in getting organizations to switch currencies, particularly in local media. At media buyer Publicis, “we took all of the diary markets out and went exclusively with Comscore. More recently at E.W. Scripps, Friedman led its stations to switch to Comscore from Nielsen
“I do have some success here in doing this. It's not easy to do. It took a long time to get that done, and I was tenacious enough to not give up,” he said.
After leaving Scripps, Friedman said he reached out to Comscore CEO Jon Carpenter. “I said, ‘hey, I’ve been out there trying to spread the word and help people understand the benefits of this currency. I’m among the few to get clients and planners and publishers to switch over, and I would love to come and join and continue telling the story about how to do this.’”
Friedman points out that Comscore uses one methodology for measuring audiences and you can add up all its local numbers to get a national rating. Comscore’s approach is the only local methodology accredited by the MRC.
“But that hasn't changed adoption,” Friedman concedes.
He says the key to getting organizations to change currencies is building what he calls a translation playbook that establishes a way of comparing audiences before and after a change. “You have to know where you’re going from and where you’re going to,” Friedman said.
Beyond accuracy, Friedman said its important to work with a measurement company whose data will flow easily through the new systems being used by buyers, sellers and programmatic platforms.
“If the data can’t be moved in and out, what are they going to do? Just not have it in there? It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “You have to think about the permissible use of data. That’s not a sexy term, but it’s one that I think everyone needs to understand. We allow that data to go into planning and buying systems. It can be modeled and compared. It can be AI-driven. The other guys, not so much.”
In order to move from broad demographics, the data has to be available to share in a clean room. “It has to be matchable. Simple as that,” he said.
The big media agency holding companies are building proprietary systems and if the data doesn’t flow, they’re not going to work. The industry won’t stand for that.
“If you look at what's happening in the meeting of business, no one's gonna pay for currency they can't use. Everyone's going to be looking for cost reductions. And I think that's going to require us to push friction out. There has to be fewer tolls and less gating. It's happening in every aspect of our business. Why wouldn’t it happen here? That has to happen.”
At Comscore, Friedman says he is looking to create a holistic data group that brings together data science, analytics, engineering and architecture. That will create an organization that can be flexible, handle changes in data sorts and media types as well as be more responsible to client needs and questions.
The Comscore team will be based in the U.S., at a time when Nielsen is outsourcing operations to India. The difference is “when you need to make changes, you can go down the hall, or you could fly 14 hours,” he said.
The same Comscore methodology that allows local audiences to be rolled up to a national total also applies to digital media, according to Friedman. That type of consistency is needed as the industry turns its attention to cross platform measurement that puts television and streaming on equal footing.
“There is a cross-platform standard written out there by MRC. It's been talked about for years,” Friedman said. “I'm hoping to jump on board and hopefully amp up how important it is. This is complicated though. It takes time.”
For what’s left of the traditional TV industry, it's important that linear and streaming impressions get their true valuations. Increasingly streaming is being measured, in part, using data directly from the streamers, like Amazon Prime Video, who pay the services and want viewership numbers that are accurate but big too.
“We need to have consistent rules on how we bring these data sources in, and how they're calibrated and measured,” Friedman said. But different companies and methodologies producing numbers doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the system.
“If you think that all of these different providers are going to have the same numbers, then you're not understanding that we all have different methodologies. It's okay if everyone doesn't have the same number,” he said.