While TV networks wait for more perfectly unified TV viewer stats -- from connected TV and other areas -- one not-insignificant bump will hit TV networks starting next year.
That's thanks
to Nielsen, which is including out-of-home viewing in its traditional TV measurements. Joe Ianniello, acting president/CEO of CBS, thinks major sports events, for one, will see a bump.
Last
year’s Super Bowl, for example, added 10% in viewership -- 11 million viewers, he says. During the company’s recent financial earnings call, Ianniello said out-of-home will get “a
significant lift in ratings.”
Ianniello also believes somewhat weaker TV time periods -- like daytime -- will gain as well. “People are watching on their own time wherever they
are, and that is a convenience.”
How much of a gain? He didn’t say. No doubt, TV marketers will welcome having more premium video content through more traditional distribution
points.
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Many media analysts offer a different value for OOH viewing -- that it might not be a more one-on-one connection versus traditional or other TV-video platforms.
All this goes
hand in hand with how TV networks see total TV premium viewership -- specifically, that it isn’t going down as many headlines proclaim. Instead, an individual TV program/episode is just scattered
around different platforms.
When including all viewing of a TV network’s program viewing -- on a company’s owned platform or via third parties, on-demand viewing and others --
legacy TV networks' ad selling executives would say everything is pretty much flat.
ABC recently touted strong results of its programming this year when looking at four weeks of time-shifted
viewing on its network. This is the Nielsen live program plus 35 days of time-shifted viewing. (ABC says it will no longer release live program/same-day TV ratings.)
Looking far ahead, you may
wonder if TV networks aren’t looking to actually play the Netflix game. That is, avoiding viewer performances of TV shows altogether -- or at least changing the equation.
If legacy media
companies continue to go deeply in the D2C (direct-to-consumer) market, much financial health will be focused around how much consumers pay directly to their favorite TV networks or TV network
groups.
In the meantime, wait for the upfront market to start next year. How many upfront deals will be done at C3, C7 and C35 (average commercial minute ratings plus three, seven, 35 days of
time-shifting)?
If those numbers show sharply higher-dollar volume gains -- using whatever evil brew of viewing metrics are available at the time -- all this might signal better days for
traditional TV networks.