January 25, 2023
ARF Calls On Industry To Scrap 'TV Households,' Replace Them With 'TV-Accessible' Ones
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, March 27, 2023
In a move likely to spark some ad industry controversy, the Advertising Research Foundation this morning issued a call to the industry to scrap the way it has defined the fundamental building block of television audience measurement -- the so-called "TV household" -- and replace it with a more encompassing …
2 comments about "ARF Calls On Industry To Scrap 'TV Households,' Replace Them With 'TV-Accessible' Ones".
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Why does Nielsen even still exist? There's so much tracking on all these devices, and even on TV's that easily track what you are watching, when you are watching it, and what your personal info and demographics are, without using a sample when it's already tracking every person watching. Look at how Netflix tracks people who watch "Stranger Things" or "Wednesday", substantial numbers every time episodes are released.
Daniel, the reason that Nielsen exists is that somebody has to organize it all, maintian it, process the information in a valid and nationallty representative manner and transmit the data to subscribers. Suppose, hypothetically, there was no Nielsen and that all set usage was being done on ACR receivers---not so by the way. These devices "know" what channel is on and what content is on the screen---not to be confused with who is watching or if anyone is even present or attentive. How is such information---from millions of sets ----to be aggregated so all sets are represented? Who does that---and gets paid by the TV networks and the agencies---mostly the former----for doing so?
The answer is an ACR home panel, which is nothing more than a Nielsen-type research operation only the difference is that it only tracks set usage on ACR sets, nothing else. As a matter of fact, Nielsen's new service will also employ ACR (and STB) panels with millions of homes as its "big data" set usage base, then meld in the important aspect of who's "watching" and the activities on all types of sets in ACR- as well as non- ACR homes from its current 100,000- person peoplemeter panel. It ain't perfect, but it goes well beyond an ACR-only panel in many ways.