Commentary

Honey, I Shrunk My Ratings

by Stuart Lipson , May 10, 2011

TV is, once again, coming into what looks to be a robust upfront market. This is obviously good for national programmers directly, and indirectly good for many others across the TV eco-system.

However, a consistent theme from national programmers over the last few months has been over "viewing of my quality programming on other devices." This new and incremental viewing is not the problem as much as the non-counting of that viewing that creates the disconnect. Way back at the beginning of the century this was called "fragmentation," but, just like when you look at one small pebble, it does not look that big until you put it next to other pebbles and realize it used to be one big rock.

When video fragmentation was just broadband video, it seemed manageable. A cat walk-off video on You Tube was cute and funny, but not going to impact movie studio advertising on Thursday night. Then came mobile video. Still, it seemed manageable. Someone watching a promo clip of a program at a bus stop might just tune in that evening.

But then came tablets and the pesky little social media issue, and suddenly, "Houston, we have a problem."

The good news is that as in any robust marketplace, where there are problems, there are people who will figure out a solution because too much is at stake not to. Now that fragmentation has become a "meaningful" topic, the media community really needs to come up with solutions to help agencies and clients figure out the reach and frequency of ad assets across all video media platforms.

Nielsen is doing the best they know how based on their market position. Companies like Canoe are bringing a dynamic ad-serving VOD product to market that will enable bringing an underperforming ad opportunity and asset to profitability. Broadband consolidation is underway, one example being Specific Media buying BBE, which will bring consistency to that platform. And efforts like AD:ID and CIMM are bringing consistency across all video platforms.

All these and many others are great steps in the right direction. So, let us support these now, in a robust market, because fragmentation is obviously here to stay and will continue to grow and be a threat to the economics of quality video programming. Nobody wins if that happens.

television, tv

2 comments about "Honey, I Shrunk My Ratings".

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Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., May 10, 2011 at 6:48 p.m.
The key error here is assuming that what you're seeing is a "fragmentation" of viewing choices - that's not the case at all. What you're seeing is the evolution of video media to a whole new level AND into a whole new beast. Specifically, an animal not contained or caged by the corporate constraints of traditional broadcasting outlets. Make no mistake - the question is not "What devices will people be watching CBS on?" - the real question is "Will people be watching CBS at all?" Look at the huge impact that the democratization of print (everybody is a "publisher" on the web) had on the newspaper industry. Is broadcast / cable so naive as to think the same thing won't happen now that all video is digital, free and on YouTube?
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Chris Pizzurro from Canoe, May 12, 2011 at 9:07 a.m.

Very valid point Jonathan. However, the economics of production and distribution of quality video programming are different from those of print. And the programmers do have lessons learned from previous mediums. Time will of course tell to see how it plays out.