Crown Media Inks Ad-Measurement Deal With iSpot.tv For Reach, Attention Metrics

Crown Media Family Networks -- which includes Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama -- has signed an ad-measurement deal with iSpot.tv.

Tom Ziangas, senior vice president, revenue and strategic research at Crown Media, told Television News Daily: “We will be partnering with our advertisers/marketers to show the reach and attention our audience brings to brands via iSpot TV data and reporting.”

Crown Media will not be using iSpot.tv as the basis for a new “currency” when it comes to inking media deals with marketers, according to executives close to the company.

Ed Georger, executive vice president of ad sales and digital media at Crown Media, said in a statement that the deal will offer insights on the real-time performance -- second-by-second measurement tracking attention -- of commercials on its networks.

During the big fourth-quarter season of holiday programming -- where Hallmark Channel typically sees soaring viewership -- data from iSpot.tv showed Hallmark Channel delivering the most household ad impressions of any cable network on TV, with 5.26% of 90.6 billion verified ad deliveries.

In January, NBCUniversal named iSpot.tv a “certified” measurement partner, in an initial effort to test new currencies for cross-media consumption, reach and impressions metrics.

8 comments about "Crown Media Inks Ad-Measurement Deal With iSpot.tv For Reach, Attention Metrics".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 15, 2022 at 9:39 a.m.

    Fantastic, Wayne. Imagine that---second by second attentiveness info for advertiser commercials. Come on NBCU what's going to be your answer to this exciting breakthrough?

  2. Tony Jarvis from Olympic Media Consultancy, March 15, 2022 at 12:38 p.m.

    A caution:  We need to be very careful with definitions and methodology when interpreting  and reporting on iSpot data.  My understanding, which may or may not be completely accurate, is that iSpot's impressions data are merely, but fundamentally, "content rendered counts" from smart TV's use of ACR technolgy - Automatic Content Recognition.  In other words, measures of the device and what is on the screen also known as "viewable impressions", the misnomer defined by MRC.  Per MRC, this is pure device measure and involves no persons or audience measurement.  Content rendered measures, while essential for makegoods, do not reflect persons actual viewing or watching; in other words, there is no eyes-on/ears-on persons measurement involved.  As to the iSpot "attention" measures, my understanding is that again this not a persons but a device measure of content rendered on the screen that has been changed or switched on a smart TV.  So "Attention"???
    These measures surely do not approach the Eyes-On measure of persons by TVision, so critical to the brand campaign's creative effectiveness, and based on surveys of people's actual viewing habits with additional queries that raise their Eyes-On data to the level of attention. 
    Whether my assessment of iSpot is correct or not, the real moral of this report for all journalists in our business is: The term "impressions" has become nebulous and must be expicitely defined in any report based on the measurement being used - devices/screens or persons, and if persons, whether at the level of OTS, LTS, Eyes-On/Ears-on or Attention.  Each of these persons exposure levels have significant differences in value for advertisers and the sellers!  In addition, the same plea goes for the key media terms, "audience", "viewing", "reach", "attention", etc. which should all be persons/target group survey based not device/screen/content rendered based.
    So, if my assessment is correct, will Media Post change the misleading headline? 

  3. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 15, 2022 at 1:17 p.m.

    Tony, of course I agree which was the point of my very short post. But, let's face it, we haven't a chance of winning this battle---we and a few others are hopelessly outnumbered and out promoted regarding the need for attentiveness measures in addition to device usage data. Still, I hope that you will join me and a few others who understand that "impressions" aren't impressions, and keep up the fight---as a matter of principle.

  4. Wes Freas from iSpot.tv, March 15, 2022 at 3:31 p.m.

    https://www.tvisioninsights.com/resources/tvisionandispottv

  5. John Grono from GAP Research, March 15, 2022 at 4:53 p.m.

    Aaaah, a springtime blossom of another vanity metric.    Not making a good impression though.

  6. Tony Jarvis from Olympic Media Consultancy replied, March 15, 2022 at 6:28 p.m.

    While it is intriguing and indeed exciting that iSpot has partnered with TVision to go beyond its nebulous impressions or content rendered counts data, I suspect that the research cognoscenti, MRC and indeed NBCU would be particulalry concerned with the comment from Sean Muller, CEO, iSpot.tv.  "By calibrating our extrapolated HH-level demographics to data from TVision's panel we can provide person and demographic level data".  In other words, a simulation of a simulation for a final database revealing typically very very small program ratings driven by a highly diverse viewing public via diverse devices. 
    I suspect the research industry will look forward to receiving a full proper Tehnical Appendix of this joint partnership technique as well as the results of MRC's accreditation of it.  (This accreditation would go well beyond just iSpot's Ad content rendering element currently in process with MRC). 

  7. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 15, 2022 at 8:22 p.m.

    Tony, as you say, it will be interesting to see how they are able to marry set usage ---based on ACR sets which account for maybe half of all viewing---with TVsion data which, I assume, will be people -based. It's possible that they will use TVision's relatively tiny 5000 home panel to derive viewer-per-set estimates and statistically meld these in with the much larger ACR panel's set usage findings, which is a potentially reasonable compromise and could produce some worthwhile media planning data in the short run. If, however, they are using another  method of establishing who is viewing and who is attentive to ads, that bears close scrutiny.

    As for second by second "viewing" data for commercials, as only 40% of the "audience" watches an average commercial and they see a bit less than half of its content, I'm not sure what  small sample size "granular" information in such detail will mean to time buyers---especially in upfront buys where neither the programs or many of the comerciials have been created as yet. Anyway, it's a step in the right direction---but time will tell about its usefulness.

  8. John Grono from GAP Research, March 16, 2022 at 3:12 a.m.

    Kids TV producers must be thrilled with the prospect of a system that heavily relies on very dubious chidren's online registrations.

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