• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, July 10, 2007

While Group M may get credit for strongly encouraging the networks to use commercial ratings this upfront, Starcom could lead a push to go further, using minute-by-minute ratings over the next several years. The agency announced its second cable upfront deal Monday with the more granular exact-minute metric, a deal with NBC Universal covering the Bravo network.

The agreement was part of a broader agreement with NBCU's cable operations. Exact-minute rating data was only used for Bravo, with the now-common commercial ratings in play for other networks, including USA and MSNBC. It is NBCU's first deal employing the exact-minute data.

Starcom earlier announced a minute-by-minute upfront deal with 11 Discovery networks. A year ago, it did minute-by-minute deals with the Weather Channel and Rainbow, covering AMC and We.

The agency could renew those agreements, giving it at least four cable deals with minute-by-minute guarantees over the next 12 months. And two other deals underscore Starcom's push for the most exact data possible regarding viewer tune-in levels to their spots: A deal where second-by-second data will be used for Discovery's HD channel and an agreement to study the impact of minute-by-minute data in kids' television with Nickelodeon.

Could the shift from program ratings to commercial ratings as the dominant upfront currency this summer be merely a stopover en route to the eventual widespread adoption of minute-by-minute ratings?

Starcom's president and chief activation officer Chris Boothe isn't certain, but suggested that advertisers' interest in "the most precise" data could clear a path. "It's a journey towards precision, everyone's following the same path ... The mere fact we're going from program ratings to commercial ratings took us a very far way down that journey," he said.

(At the time the Starcom-Discovery deal was announced, Beth Rockwood, Discovery's senior vice president of market resources, said: "We believe the industry will eventually move to the exact minute delivery metric as a basis for guarantees.")

Boothe did emphasize there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Different marketers have tailored needs and each deal with has its own nuances, even as heightened accountability remains the overriding goal.

The NBCU deal at-large includes on-air spots, but also content integration and digital opportunities.

Early in the upfront, Group M made a deal that NBCU chief Jeff Zucker valued at $1 billion. That would make it worth a little more than 25% of the $3.9 billion Zucker said NBCU would take in for its total upfront haul covering the NBC network, cable and other areas. That deal employed commercial ratings covering three days of DVR viewing across the board, the so-called C3 metric, and in retrospect, signaled that commercial ratings would emerge as the principal currency in 2008. Throughout the upfront, from broadcast to cable, Group M has told networks that it would not negotiate on anything but the C3 data, a source said.

Next year, Starcom may look to convince a broadcast network to negotiate with the minute-by-minute data, perhaps setting off a domino effect.

As for this year, Starcom's Christine Olson, vice president-cable activation director, said she expects the minute-by-minute deals with the Weather Channel and the two Rainbow entertainment networks to be reupped. "We consider them extremely valuable partners and are in talks to continue with the accountability metrics we did last year," she said. In the Starcom-Discovery deal, the programmer will combine Nielsen's All Minute data with its own logs to determine the commercial viewing levels.