- A Metrics Miracle in
Metrics Insider on
12/09/2016
Josh Chasin is a poet -- and he knows it -- with this twist on a seasonal classic:" 'Twas the week before Christmas, when alone in my house/ I was finishing shopping, with a click of the mouse;/Then
I cleared out my browser cache, cookies deleted,/ In hopes of nefarious snooping, defeated."
- Advertising Works -- And How! in
Metrics Insider on
11/04/2016
Sometimes I worry that we digital cognoscenti can get so lost in the magic and elegance of all these awesome algorithms and Big Data assets, that we forget to take a step back and ponder the bigger
picture: the actual people out there on the other side of all those myriad screens.
- Advertising Works -- And How! in
Metrics Insider on
04/01/2016
Sometimes I worry that we digital cognoscenti can get so lost in the magic and elegance of all these awesome algorithms and Big Data assets, that we forget to take a step back and ponder the bigger
picture: the actual people out there on the other side of all those myriad screens.
- Inside Today's Digital Household in
Metrics Insider on
02/05/2016
There was a time when understanding consumer use of the Internet was relatively simple - way more complex than understanding engagement with any other medium, sure, but still relatively simple. All we
needed to deal with was engagement from computers. There were no tablets, no smartphones, no OTT; your thermostat wasn't a connected device.
- A Metrics Miracle in
Metrics Insider on
12/22/2015
Josh Chasin is a poet -- and he knows it -- with this twist on a seasonal classic:" 'Twas the week before Christmas, when alone in my house/ I was finishing shopping, with a click of the mouse;/Then
I cleared out my browser cache, cookies deleted,/ In hopes of nefarious snooping, defeated."
- For Best Results: Big Data, Meet Media Research in
Data and Targeting Insider on
12/21/2015
I've been thinking a lot about the deployment of Big Data assets in the digital space. Clearly, it is one of the most profound developments in digital metrics - and indeed, in our lives. The Internet
of Things is already here; we can pay with our watches, and we've got Google thermostats. But in our space, I worry that there is too much emphasis placed on "Big Data," and not enough on "Good Data."
Perhaps here the data scientist can learn from the media researcher.
- Rethinking Traditional Audience Measurement Through A Digital Framework in
Metrics Insider on
12/11/2015
What would a video measurement system look like if one were to zero-base such a solution today, with the tools we have at hand, given the measurement challenges we face, while unencumbered by legacy
systems?
- Let's Not Forget: Digital Advertising Moves Products in
Metrics Insider on
11/11/2015
Lately it seems as if every article I read about digital advertising is about viewability, fraud, or ad blocking. "No one's seeing my ads!" "Robots are seeing my ads!" "Robots are blocking my ads!"
It's enough to make the casual reader think the sky was falling. I'm starting to think we're all collectively guilty of "burying the lede": that digital advertising works, persuades consumers, moves
products.
- Rethinking Traditional Audience Measurement Through A Digital Framework in
Metrics Insider on
10/22/2015
What would a video measurement system look like if one were to zero-base such a solution today, with the tools we have at hand, given the measurement challenges we face, while unencumbered by legacy
systems?
- Rethinking The Single Currency Model in
Metrics Insider on
10/16/2015
One of the long-standing assumptions in audience measurement has been the notion of currency - and more to the point, of a single currency. I learned about the one-currency model in a very real way
working at Arbitron in the '80s and '90s. We won one single-currency battle: spot radio measurement, where we competed with Birch Radio. And we lost one: spot TV, where we competed with Nielsen. But
I'd like to offer a radical opinion. In the digital age, multiple transactional media currencies can, do, and will continue to exist. Indeed, they need to exist.
- Show Franchises Going Back Decades Fill Fall Lineups
by
Adam Buckman
(TVBlog on
09/17/2026)
There's been at least one Law & Order or a sister show on NBC straight through since 1990.
- Canada Is The Canary In America's Coal Mine
by
Gord Hotchkiss
(Media Insider on
08/25/2026)
i'm far less optimistic. You can't "unlearn" something once you know it. The rest of the world has learned the level of risk associated with an over-reliance on the US for trade and alliances. Sure, they know this is because the POTUS is a malignant narcissist in the throes of frontotemporal dementia. But do you think Canada, e.g., will ever make this mistake again? The fiasco of Trump has laid bare for all the world to see the utter irreponsibility of a nation placing too many eggs in the US basket. If I was a Canadian voter and I had a choice between the "Bygones be bygones, let's disproportionately rely on the US again" candidate, and the "Lesson learned, a diverse portfolio of trade partners and allies is best for Canada" candidate, I know which one would get my vote.
- Canada Is The Canary In America's Coal Mine
by
Gord Hotchkiss
(Media Insider on
08/25/2026)
The most enduring legacy of the Trump presidency will be the fact that the rest of the world no longer considers the US a reliable trading partner, or a trustworthy ally, One man has singlehandedly terninated the world leadershiop position we have held since World War II. The American Century is officially over.
- Sports Fans Resort To More Piracy For Live-Streaming Games
by
Wayne Friedman
(TV Watch on
08/20/2026)
The problem is that pre-streaming, 85% of us had cable, and all the games were on broadcast or cable. So finding the game wasn't a problem for 85% of us.Now, in addirtion to broadcast and cable, major sporting events are spread across Netflix, Peacock, ESPN, Prime, Paramount+, Apple TV, and Max. Plus local platforms (I subscribed to Gotham before the season so I could watch the Knicks; best $240 I ever spent.) 10 years ago, with one subscription you were set; now you need 7. According to Deloitte, 90% of US HHs. subscribe to at least one streaming service; among this 90% the average is 4 subscriptions. So of course people can't find games.
- This Just In... Nielsen Touts 'Enhancements' Beginning This Fall
by
Joe Mandese
(Planning & Buying Insider on
08/19/2026)
I've written abiout this before. At VideoAmp we of course had no Nielsen data, and because they constrain clients from supporting comparisons of Nielsen data with other data, no aid was forthcoming. So the analyses we could do were limited. However, because many outlets report on Nielsen program ratings for persons 18+ and 18-49, we were able to amass a bunch of that from the Internet, and compare prime time program ratings for 18+, 18-49, and (derivable) 50+, for a bunch of programs.We found that in general, we were ballpark close on 18+, but that VideoAmp credited a materially higher % of 18+ viewing to 18-49 year-olds, while Nielsen (this pre-dated BD+P) credited a materially higher % to persons 50+ We did a bunch of investigation, looking for context and external validation, and quickly ended up convincing ourselves that we were "right." One thing I put in a bunch of decks was that, when Nexstar acquired the CW, the trades reported that the median age for the CW was 58 (obviously based on Nielsen). This meant that for every 25 year-old watching The Flash, there was also a 91 year-old. Not surprisingly, we showed younger median ages across the board for networks, including news networks, which still skewed old for us, but less so.
- This Just In... Nielsen Touts 'Enhancements' Beginning This Fall
by
Joe Mandese
(Planning & Buying Insider on
08/19/2026)
The way we did personificaation at both VideoAmp and Comscore was essentially to start with a known roster of HH members (say from Experian), and take what wa on the set, and clculate viewing probabilities within the HH based on the emogrphy of the persons in the HH and what was on the screen. This assignment was trained by a panel-- at COmscore, Arbitron PPM; at VideoAmp, TVision.l While this might get individual HHs wrong, in aggregate (which was how both companies report) it works pretty well. There are age skew biases in footprints but this is where DASH becomes useful (and ideally you have a sufficient diversity of big data sources to mitigate the boias of any single one.) With DASH you can see the demographic distribution of, e.g., Set Top Box HHs, so the skew may be known. (You can even see demographics by provider; Comcast versus Spectrum e.g. Vizio vs. LG.)Nielsen wasn't using the PPM in the TV panel. It's in radio metros and not overlapping HHs. They use it in TV for OOH and this is why they no longer treat guest viewing as in-home viewing-- because if they did, using PPM for OOH and meters fopr guest viewing double counts guest viewing (the PPM knows if you're in your own home but not in someone else's.)
- This Just In... Nielsen Touts 'Enhancements' Beginning This Fall
by
Joe Mandese
(Planning & Buying Insider on
08/19/2026)
Regarding bullet 2, ARF announced this week that DASH is going to 2 releases a year, each with the most recent 12 months of data. While I know mwasurement companies don't like to change universe estimates during a broadcast year, this would enable Nielsen, if so inclined, to refresh universe estimates 2X a year. Users would likely balk at a mid-year universe chaange,but it could be desirable if a weighting variable is changing rapidly (e.g., streaming penetration.)Regarding bullet 3, on HDAM: I'm somewhat surprised at the assertion that big data skews old. I'm very much under the impression that it is panel data that skews old. Perhaps Nielsen personification of big data, driven by the panel, was driving the older skew in the big data, so an AI model could be seen as remedial to reliance on an older-skewing panel. Bullet 4, improved weighting, the reader can't really parse without more detail. Better weighting is obviously... well, better... and because of the scale of big data, such data can support more granular weighting than a panel, without a problematic loss of reliability.*Regarding Hispanics: I believe the National Hispanic Enumeration Survey is Nielsen's own survey, which their press doesn't seem to make clear. With Roberto Ruiz (long time Univision research exec) now atop Nielsen's research team, Hispanic representation will be well-stewarded. I'm guessing the ACR monitored tuning adjustment looks at sets they have metered, which are also in their ACR footprint, and using the meter as a truth set to correct for misidentification or (probbly more common) missed viewing sessions in the ACR data (e.g. if some content isn't fingerprinted.) If I understand this correctly, this seems like best practice.Trying to parse "provider B householding": I don't think Nielsen wants to make HHs out of individual providers (I'm 99% sure the ACR providers can household their own devices with near-absolute certainty, since they get the ACR data back from the set via the HH's internet, so they know sets with common IP addresses.) Rather, I think Nielsen wants to household devices ACROSS providers. Provider B probably upgraded the signal/metadata provided to Nielsen, improving the quality of the match of their devices to the Nielsen HH graph that combines devices into HHs across providers._____________ *For example, hypothetically: 2 genders X 8 age cells X 4 race/ethnicity cells X 5 HH income breaks X 3 TV HH types would yield 960 weighting cells. In a panel of say 60,000 people that's an average of 62.5 persons per cell. For say 20 million HHs with 3 persons each on average, for the same weighting schema that would be 62,500 persons per cell. Way more lattitude in weighting granularity. That's more people per weighting cell than the entire population of Glendive.
- This Just In... Nielsen Touts 'Enhancements' Beginning This Fall
by
Joe Mandese
(Planning & Buying Insider on
08/19/2026)
People meter non-compliance cuts both ways. A viewer might log in when beginning a viewing session, but not logging off and back on when they briefly leave the room. Better tracking of egress and return could conceivably reduce audience to the commercial minutes.There is data that shows that push-button meter panels skew older than more pasive collection. Dr. Pat Pellegrini did one such study in Canada for Numeris, comparing a people meter panel to Arbitron PPM; Yan Liu of TVision told me that there was a good study on this in Japan, but alas it's in Japanese. And CIMM did a study, I believe with TVision.
- Ad Industry Backs Google In Fight Over Age-Based Targeting
by
Wendy Davis
(MediaDailyNews on
08/18/2026)
We shouldn't target by age? That feels a little like saying, "All these chefs need to stop using... INGREDIENTS!"News audiences skew old. Are we saying that all those commercials I see on CNN for drugs where I can't figure out what they do, but which must make old people happy based on all the frolicking in the spots, now need to run on Nick and the Disney Channel?
- Why Nielsen Keeps Publishing 'The Gouge'
by
Joe Mandese
(Planning & Buying Insider on
08/18/2026)
Hey joe. The thing about the Gauge is that as near as I can tell, it's a marketing piece, not a product. I don't think there's a deeper version of it beyond what's on the website. It's very visible-- especially to people like you and me, who don't have Nielsen subscriptions-- but it probably draws too much attention in the scheme of things. Also-- not trivially-- if I'm prsing th FAQs correctly, it's limited to viewing on TVs, which will tend to favor broadcast/cable.