1. Open AP’s New Measurement JIC

Open AP announced the formation of a JIC (joint industry council) to certify alternative TV measurement companies this week that counts all of the major TV companies except Disney among its founders.

JICs are a big thing in Europe, but not the US, as our media companies don’t usually like to cooperate, so you know something is up when they do.

The JIC has several noble goals including creating a not-replacing-the-MRC-no-really certification process, creating a new unified streaming viewership dataset that can be used by certified companies to create cross-platform ratings and funding key data initiatives to increase the pace of innovation. 

All in time for the 2023 upfronts.

The real impetus for this much-needed development however, can be found in these two quotes.

The first is from Paramount Global President John Halley via Adweek: “If there’s a narrative that we want to unwind, it’s that NBC is an iSpot shop and Paramount’s a VideoAmp shop. We’re both working towards enabling both of those things in addition to Comscore and Nielsen One.”

The second is from WBD’s Steve Silvestri, via FierceVideo, “At some point we want to blur the lines between reaching a linear audience in broadcast or if we’re reaching them in a streaming environment,”   

So let’s unpack those comments.

Why It Matters

Halley’s comment is, unfortunately, spot on. No matter how many times Kelly Abcarian and Linda Yaccarino said “this is just a test, we are going to work with other measurement vendors too!” all that many people heard was “NBCU is an iSpot shop!”

Similarly, no matter how many times Halley and his team said “VideoAmp is the first of several vendors we plan to work with,” all many people heard was “Paramount is a VideoAmp shop!”

This is not surprising in the least—the industry often has the attention span of a Ted Lasso goldfish and an inability to process compound sentences.

In many ways, the decision to actually go ahead and start a JIC likely stems from a slew of agency conversations on the order of “Ack!!! How are we supposed to buy if NBCU is using iSpot, Paramount is using VideoAmp and local broadcasters are still using Nielsen???”

Meaning a key purpose of the JIC will be to reassure agencies that while there will be alternative currencies, they will be vetted and that the networks will be using all of them, thus enabling easy apples-to-apple comparisons rather than digital-style chaos.

Speaking of which, there’s Silvestri’s comment. It refers to the fact that all of the major media companies are trying to sell across their streaming and linear properties. This makes sense in that most people are watching some combination thereof. (We call it “hybrid viewing” around these parts.)

The lack of any sort of apples-to-apples stats across the various streaming platforms coupled with  the fear of programmers grading their own homework has been an issue for anyone looking to do this sort of cross platform measurement.

So having a standardized streaming dataset that everyone pulls from further helps to reassure advertisers and their agencies that the buys they are executing are easily compared and planned.

There’s a lot more going on here too.

There’s the whole Nielsen thing. 

As in, Nielsen One launches next year and it would be all too easy for brands to decide that the current scenario was just too messy to deal with and jump back on the Nielsen bandwagon.

By launching the JIC now, in time for the 2023 Upfronts, the media companies are able to get out ahead of Nielsen and get brands comfortable with the idea of transacting off a number of approved currencies.

Finally, there’s YouTube and TikTok.

What do they have to do with Nielsen?

Well on many levels, both those apps compete with TV for youthful eyeballs and ad dollars, their “prosumer” (high production value amateur) video programming in particular.

So, as my friend Madhive CEO Adam Helfgott noted this morning, the JIC is bringing together TV’s premium content owners to draw a line in the sand with user-generated, prosumer video. It also makes it easier for advertisers to buy said premium video across the various networks, measure it more effectively, and understand the actual impact from campaigns.

No small feat.

So there’s all that and then there’s the fact that Nielsen also sees itself as a premium product and charges the networks accordingly, something the new measurement companies do not do.

A huge plus at a time when profits are shrinking=.

What You Need To Do About It

If you’re an ad agency or a brand advertiser, this JIC is designed to put your mind at ease. You’ll easily be able to offer proof that all these new non-Nielsen companies have been vetted and that the streaming measurement they’re offering has been vetted too, as it all comes from the same data set, and none of it is self-reported.

If you’re Disney, your holdout status is noticeable. Time to engage with one or more of the new players on a broader basis and show that the industry is united.

If you’re Netflix, this could also be a chance to break free of Nielsen. Though I get that it’s tricky because at some level you need their name to give you cover with more traditional advertisers who are looking at you as a replacement for network prime time and having Nielsen ratings is still seen as a seal of approval.

But still….

If you’re the MRC, remember that a rising tide lifts all boats and so it’s in your interest to play nice with the JIC. Monopolies never benefit anyone, whether they’re measurement companies or the august bodies that certify them.

2. 18-49 Year Olds Abandon Linear

Our buddy Rich Greenfield and others have been having a field day with a Nielsen stat this week showing that there is only one broadcast and cable network with more than one million nightly 18-49 viewers and only five with more than 400K.

It is indeed a damning stat and points to trouble ahead for linear TV. But before we all start dancing on traditional TV’s grave, let’s remember that this is a slow-leaking balloon, not a dam burst.

Next year, all those 18-49 year olds will be 19-50 years old, and the millions of Boomers and Xers who are 50 and up will be 51 and up.

Meaning we’ve got quite a while before linear gets to a place where it actually implodes.

Why It Matters

We are now in the Hybrid Era. That means people are watching both linear and streaming, some more than others. 

For many people, their linear viewing is limited to live sporting events and major news stories.

Others move back and forth with more regularity, while others still primarily watch linear with occasional forays out to streaming.

Or (and I know I’ve been banging this drum for a while), a show like CBS’s Fire Country still manages, on its January 6th episode, to garner 6.57 million viewers, which is around 2 million more than the season 2 finale of White Lotus.

Now of those 6.57 million viewers, only around 730K or 11% were in the 18-49 demo (as per the calculator at RatingsRyan. Because you really can find anything on the internet.)

Point being that yes, younger viewers are not watching a whole lot of network prime time TV, but The Olds still are. 

And there are a lot of Olds. 

All the Boomers and most of Gen X. 

None of whom are disappearing any time soon. Which means that if you want to reach all those fairly affluent older viewers, prime time TV is a very good bet. Provided, of course, you supplement it with streaming to catch the ones you’re missing.  (The reverse is true for Zoomers and Millennials—heavy on the streaming and use linear to catch the ones you miss.)

What You Need To Do About It

Everyone needs to remember that the decline of linear TV is like a slow leaking balloon. I always use AOL as an example. The service has done a long slow fade over the past 25 years but it’s still in business and still profitable. Linear TV may not stick around that long, but it’s not going to implode the way the music industry did. So prepare for a hybrid ecosystem because that’s where we’re going to be for the next five to 10 years, possibly longer.