Welcome to the blog of Dr. Lisa Burns' Media Studies senior capstone class (2 pm section) at Quinnipiac University. If you're looking for the latest on media industry trends and insightful media analysis, you've come to the right place!
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Audience Metrics & Advertising Blog 2, Question 2 (Feb. 6th)
Given the changes in how audiences consume media, do ratings still
matter? Why or why not? And are there alternative ways to track media
consumption? Limit: 9 responses
I think there is an illusion that with the rise of SVOD streaming services and OTT services that ratings have lost some meaning. I personally don’t think that’s exactly true. As Josef Adalian put it in his article “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore” for The Vulture, “We’re not in a post-ratings world – at least not yet” (Adalian). Ratings are still very important, if harder to obtain, but still influence important things, for example what programs will get advertisements.
Looking at the Nielson 2017 Q2 report we see that people are still very concerned with understanding the composition of households. This is so that programming can be better targeted to suite these household needs better. In this sense we can then see how ratings could be used to know if this targeting is working. Likewise as mentioned before the ratings determine the quality of advertisements a show can get which then can also be better targeted with these household demographics from Nielsen. In that way all these things work together to make a superior programming experience for all involved.
Similarly for that matter it is important to know who is watching SVOD services, but not in the same way necessary. When we look at the ComScore State of the OTT report we can see that they focus more on bulk numbers. It is important to know how many people are using these OTT services and how they are accessing these services, but sense these are subscription based services and not reliant on advertisements so they do not have a need to target them. That being said, that doesn’t mean there is no need for ratings on these newer services because it is still important to know what type of content people want to watch. Looking at it from this perspective it is clear how ratings are still important but perhaps what we examine is changing.
Looking back to the article from The Vulture, Adalian reminds us that, “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” but also that, “since the whole reason ratings exist is to help networks determine how much to charge for ad time, it only follows that the less important ad money becomes, the less all-important those Nielsen numbers are” (Adalian). This is exactly what I was getting at. While the purpose of the ratings may not differ depending on the exact service we are talking about, it does not mean that their use in the market is gone. Further I would venture to say that ratings will still be important in one way or another for a long time yet, as there will always be a benefit in the media market in knowing who is watching what and how they are watching it.
Works Cited: Adalian, Joseph. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14AD, 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
ComScore. State of OTT An in-Depth Look at Today’s over-the-Top Content Consumption and Device Usage. ComScore, Apr. 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398996-dt-content-rid-17941267_1/courses/MSS49501_18SP/State%2Bof%2BOTT.pdf.
Nielsen. “The Nielsen Total Audience Report: Q2 2017.” Nielsen, 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398993-dt-content-rid-17941247_1/courses/MSS49501_18SP/Nielsen%20Total%20Audience%20Report%20Q2%202017.pdf.
When it comes to television, ratings don’t matter as much as they once did. I’m not saying they don’t matter at all, but social media buzz is valued slightly more when it comes to defining the success of shows. When a show is all over social media that is today’s equivalent of having good ratings. This makes me think especially of Netflix originals: Stranger Things and Black Mirror are all the buzz on social media, but we don’t have physical ratings for these shows. According to Josef Adalian, “almost every artistic endeavor in Hollywood comes attached to a ranking of some sort, a numerical report card that allows the town to declare said project a success or failure — and then gossip about it endlessly.” Adalian’s article in Vulture goes on to explain that the only exception to this rule is Netflix. Netflix and its competition in SVOD have changed the way we rate our entertainment. I’m aware that SVOD throws a wrench into the concept of ratings. Ratings exist so that we know who is watching shows and so that the networks know which shows to renew. Adalian claims that “the better the show performed in the ratings, the more the networks could charge advertisers, and the more money they’d make. But in an era of depressed ratings [and SVOD] few shows can make monster profits from ad sales alone.” As a social media lover, I think ratings seem less relevant in today’s society because of the weight social media carries. I know when I see a show buzzed about online it intrigues me. The only reason why I would consider watching Orange is The New Black is because of its social media presence. As it turns out, I hated the show, but the ratings wouldn’t have mattered to me either way. I think I would say that social media would be an alternative way of tracking media consumption; its something that we all pay attention to but before being a communications major, I had never even heard of Nielsen. Shouldn’t that say something? Just like millions of people are cord-cutting, maybe the top media conglomerates are rate-cutting. As it stands, not only are OTT devices contributing more to the industry, but cord-cutters also consume more media than the average cable subscriber. According to Mike Rich at comScore, “the average OTT viewing home in the U.S. spends 49 hours a month viewing OTT content, cord-cutter homes consume 79 hours of OTT content a month (2.5 hours per day) – about 60 percent more than the average OTT viewer.” My point here is that ratings still matter, but in a changing media environment, they just aren’t as significant as they once were. SVOD is changing the industry one original content show at a time.
Adalian, Josef. "How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix’s Hidden Ratings." Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
Adalian, Josef. "TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?" Vulture, 14 May 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018. Rich, Mike. "What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters." ComScore, 12 June 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/ What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
Ratings will always play a major role in networks choosing to promote or take away certain shows. Media consumption is tracked through the behaviors of households of cord-cutters to see why they do it, and what media they choose instead. Studying the cord-cutter tendencies helps show what the direction or future of the content will look like. The average household in America viewing OTT content spends 49 hours a month viewing; cord-cutting homes use 79 hours of OTT content a month, and that is just about 60 percent more than the average home (Rich). Cord-cutters spend more time on streaming services like Hulu and Netflix than the average OTT viewer. Homes that make an income of $75k or less are more likely in general to be a cord-cutter than homes that make more than $75k (Rich). An average cable bill is around $100 dollars a month, so it would make sense that they cut the cord because in one year they lose $1200 dollars to Pay TV.
Ratings are very important in today’s society. Most advertisers either look to hit the most prominent shows, or aim at a certain target audience. If they do not have ratings, they would be “shooting blind” to make some type of profit. For example, an advertiser might promote children’s toys on a kid’s channel more than an adult related channel based on ratings. Pay TV is very reliant on these ratings, because they help determine if a current show will have another season. Networks today focus on the youth of a show’s fan base, loyalty, buzz, how cheap the show is to make, and whether they own it or not.
Netflix is a genius with regards to what they do involving the ratings. They choose to not release ratings. If one show is not getting the same viewership that another one is, no one will know. Then, the consumers can talk about all different types of shows because there is not a physical statistic that shows what consumers prefer to stream. The only thing Netflix actually releases is the schedule of upcoming shows, which gets the buzz of the fan base.
Since there is not a worry about advertising time or making cable operators pay networks subscription fees, Netflix just makes money from their regular fee and does not need to release ratings (Adalian). Willa Paskin stated that “Netflix is the real alchemist, the magician who, by withholding rating information altogether has turned every one of its shows into a smash hit” (Paskin). This is all a part of Netflix’s big business model; they release less information to the public and other media companies so they know how to target an audience better than anyone else can. This in turn gives them a competitive advantage in today’s media consumption market. At the same time, other networks cannot compare their hit shows to others and Netflix. Ratings matter on both sides of the spectrum. If you are Pay TV, hopefully they are good for your shows because your job is lying in the balance. If you are Netflix, never release anything, because then you know what types of shows media customers prefer to consume.
Adalian, Josef. “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix's Hidden Ratings.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
Paskin, Willa. “In the Streaming Age, Nothing's a Hit Anymore.” Slate Magazine, 12 Nov. 2015, www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/11/tv_ratings_in_the_streaming_age_why_nothing_can_be_called_a_hit_anymore.html.
Rich, Mike. “What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters.” ComScore, Inc., 12 June 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
I believe that while media has adapted over the years and audience consumption of this media has changed as a result, ratings still do matter. Historically, ratings have been very important, particularly in the mid 1900s when there were only three networks. At this time, ratings were focused on consumer age and gender and were crucial to advertising companies and to the network hosting the programing (Fulgoni). As technology began to play a greater role in media consumption, these ratings continued to be crucial and their scope changed from being solely television based to also including other devices and services that consumers use to view media. This new media includes digital devices, OTT (over the top) devices and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. More specifically, digital devices include computers, tablets, and mobile devices such as smartphones. OTT devices include smart TVs and streaming services and IoT devices include audio systems, smart speakers and wearables. Measuring viewership and consumption of media through these new devices and services has become particularly important as their use has come to overshadow that of TV use for most viewers (Fulgoni). Nielsen has been the company providing ratings since 1950 and they continue to measure what is important today (TV Ratings). Nielsen is aware that ratings do not work the same way they did when the company first began and content was only viewed on television sets. The company’s website explains that “[t]oday’s program content is viewed on more than just television sets. Consumers are watching via the internet and mobile devices, in-home and out-of-home, live and time-shifted, free and paid, rebroadcast and original programs” (TV Ratings). Nielsen has adapted its company with the changing media forms consumers use to measure ratings for all these platforms. Due to the fact that consumers in the age groups of 18-34 and 35-54, view digital media more than TV, this company’s willingness and ability to adapt has been crucial to its success (Fulgoni). Ratings are also important because they change consumer behavior (Paskin). More specifically, ratings can persuade viewers by providing them with information about which shows are trending, convincing them of these shows’ quality. In fact, this is the case to such an extent that Netflix does not release its shows’ ratings so as to not discourage viewers from watching shows that may currently have low ratings (Paskin). It also allows viewers to realize what is going on in the world around them and recognize views outside of their own. “...ratings matter because ratings are a rejoinder to egotism, a tether to reality. Ratings keep us-barely- from mistaking our interests and our test from everyone else’s, at a time when it has never been easier to conflate the two” (Paskin). While Nielsen has incorporated additional ways to track media consumption by broadening the means of consumption that they are measuring, other companies have made changes to their measurements as well. ComScore, an analytics and media statistics company, has altered the way they measure viewership by “de-duplicating” audiences (Fulgoni). The company uses this term to describe the process they use to ensure that individuals consuming media on several different devices are not counted twice in ratings. Changes like those made by ComScore and Nielsen are demonstrating that adapting rating methods is more important than finding alternative means altogether.
Gian Fulgoni. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” 8 June 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398994-dt-content-rid-17941258_1/c ourses/MSS49501_18SP/Parallel%2BUniverses%2BMeasuring%2BEyeball s%2BAcross%2BPlatforms%2C%2BScreens%2Band%2BDevices. Pdf.
Paskin, Willa. “In the Streaming Age, Nothing's a Hit Anymore .” Slate Magazine, 12 Nov. 2015, www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/11/tv_ratings_in_the_streaming_age_why_nothi Ng_can_be_called_a_hit_anymore.html.
“TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html
All good (and in this case mediocre) things must come to an end and the same goes for the Nielsen rating system. While it may be true that, “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter (Adalain),” the rating system as we know it will have to change. In the world of SVOD and OTT services, the majority of cable shows are facing double-digit declines in viewership and networks are turning to other methods to turn high profits (Adalain).
Most of these methods make use of these SVOD and OTT services. Companies make investments in the shows themselves, looking to make profits off the show’s streaming rights and international sales (Adalain). These methods take advantage of the long tail and offer cable companies an alternative to advertising as a sole point of profit, reducing the importance of ratings. Companies are clearly taking this into account when selecting which shows to air. To demonstrate this, Adalain provides the example of Taken having an easier time getting renewed than Timeless, despite Timeless having better ratings. This, according to Adalain’s sources was done in the interest of international sales and streaming rights (Adalain).
In the meantime, the Nielsen Report’s method of representing the viewing habits of Americans leaves plenty of room for inaccuracy as explained by Melvin Mar, who served as a former Nielsen family along with his wife. Aside from testing a very small sample size as Mar alone represented one percent of all homes in Los Angeles, too much of this system ran on the honor system (Mar). Participants were asked to “log in” by pushing a numbered button before watching TV. Mar often messed with this system, sometimes for fun and other times for helping directors he liked (Mar). Nothing prevented him from doing that. Aside from that, the value of his views was judged by questions like, “Did you recently buy a car?” when determining what markets he fit while profiling him (Mar). With such a small sample size, there is too much room for random error here, especially when online ads can track people’s searches using cookies. Something needs to change, and fast.
Companies are looking for alternatives to the old Nielsen method, but having difficulty agreeing on exactly how to determine who is viewing each show and whether or not consumers are actually paying attention. Meanwhile, Nielsen is struggling with how much to value streaming data which may be deemed unreliable (Steinberg) For many companies, the solution to this problem is tracking this information for themselve using a wide variety of different techniques (Steinberg). But at that rate, how are advertisers supposed to trust these statistics or even honestly compare them when deciding where to put their money? What Steinberg claims is that Nielsen will take a backseat, no longer seen as the end-all-be-all rating system, but acting as a third party system to keep individually produced rating systems in check.
Adalian, Joseph. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14AD, 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Mar, Melvin. “We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015,www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html.
Steinberg, Brian. “TV Industry Struggles to Agree on Ratings Innovation.” Variety, 12 Apr. 2017, www.variety.com/2017/tv/features/nielsen-total-content-ratings-1202027752/.
While the term “ratings” might seem like it doesn’t have the same power behind it as it once did in terms of viewership, it still holds significant to today. However, rather than having zero significance at all, I feel as though ratings have evolved as our platforms of viewing have evolved. As Joseph Adalian notes, “After a decade of audience erosion, including double-digit declines for the vast majority of shows this season, networks have finally accepted reality: People aren’t watching TV the way they used to, and selling commercials isn’t enough to pay the bills (and make a big profit).” With streaming services introducing audiences to a new and more convenient way of viewing (and finding much success in doing so), traditional ratings don’t hold the same volume as they once did. As Paul Bond also notes, “EMarketer says that the average adult American watched four hours and 10 minutes of TV — be it free, cable or satellite — per day in 2017, but that number will fall to three hours and 47 minutes in 2019. Meanwhile, time spent with digital media was one hour and 10 minutes in 2016, and that will grow to one hour and 26 minutes in 2019.” Companies such as Netflix and Hulu don’t release their viewership as other traditional television companies might. Even Yohana Desta notes how the company Symphony Advanced Media claimed to have cracked the code into figuring out Netflix’s views, a claim which Netflix officials often shut down. She states, “Through it all, Netflix has remained staunchly oblique about its ratings numbers, to the points where it’s become a running joke in the industry.”
But while these SVOD services have created a new form of popular viewership, ratings still matter for traditional television. Again, the term doesn’t quite hold the same significance, but still has significance. Networks still need a way of seeing if their show is hitting with audiences and the most straightforward way of knowing is through viewership. For a personal example, I’ve always been a fan of the show, The Walking Dead, and yet in the recent seasons I’ve found it losing my interest. In its early seasons, I remember how it would pull 7-9 million views on it’s season premieres. Even though I don’t really watch anymore, I still see articles on how the show has been facing significant drops in views versus the level it was once off and that has to be an automatic red flag to these television networks that their show isn’t succeeding. While ratings might not have the same meaning or significance as they once did, it’s important to note that they still do matter in this industry despite shifts in platforms.
Adalian, Josef. "TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?" Vulture, 14 May 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix’s Ratings Finally Gives Up” Vanity Fair. 19 April 2017. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-ratings-symphony
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu’s Most Popular Shows Revealed”. The Hollywood Reporter. 4 Oct. 2017, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130
Ratings are good to know and can help companies decide what content to advertise, but they don’t matter as much as they used to. They mainly tell us “who” we are and “what” we’re watching. The important thing to know now, especially for streaming services, are the “why,” “when,” and “where” aspects of viewership.
There is a lot of traffic amongst available content and we now actively decide what to watch rather than just accepting what is on at a particular time. When In Living Color was on at the same time as Saturday Night Live, decisions were made by the public which were better thanks to viewership ratings. It is a different ball game when hundreds of hours are uploaded to YouTube by the minute (Fortunelords, 2018).
It is now 2018 and the battle for attention is becoming more complex. Cord-cutters, or those without cable or satellite, usually have lower household income (Rich, 2017). This is where “why” has become more important than “what.” Netflix is at that beautiful range of $10-$11 per month compared to the $60-$70 per month price of satellite television. If the difference is between eating vegetables versus watching Game of Thrones, I know what most households will choose.
Netflix and Hulu have these wonderful phenomena called an “app.” They are wonderful because you can watch anything, anywhere; the locations are unlimited (with the exception of needing internet access or mobile data). With apps, viewers are no longer confined to a television or a fixed position. This is the point that “where” takes away from ratings.
Nielsen as a ratings company is notorious for monitoring television and recording data through face-to-face interviews (Mar, 2015). When people are constantly on the move, they won’t accurately be able to record how long they are watching a piece of content unless they are watching it from beginning to end.
Also, “where” is not a traditional part of what is revealed in the ratings. If that can be better tracked, it would be good to know if people are watching content while on the move or traditionally watching television. Who is recording what people are watching on their friend’s laptop or in a restaurant?
If rating systems aren’t accurate, then what is the point of using them? Netflix clearly doesn’t want to make their creators and competition nervous by not releasing their ratings or tracking data (Desta, 2017). Those involved in the ratings system can lie or give wrong information (Mar, 2015). An alternative way to track information is to track the devices. Don’t only go based off of surveys and Nielsen’s TV. recorder. Have people willingly download apps to their devices that records content viewership. This can also be done on smart TVs.
Works Cited
Desta, Y. (2017, May 25). Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives Up. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-ratings-symphony
Mar, M. (2015, December 01). We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from http://www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html
Rich, M. (2017, June 12). What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters
Youtube Statistics - 2018. (2018, February 05). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/
Ratings will always matter in the broadcast and cable world. However, their representation in over-the-top (OTT) services and out-of-home (OOH) services are changing. Audience tracking on traditional TV sets is shifting to digital media and OTT services. TV networks are struggling to create one method to measure audiences across platforms. Variety reporter Brian Steinberg says “(If) the industry can’t come to a consensus on which solution is best to evolve TV’s hopelessly broken measurement system beyond its current reliance solely on Nielsen monitoring of linear TV audiences, it risks losing no small portion of the approximately $44 billion in advertising dollars that ad-buyer Magna Global says was spent on national TV last year” (1). The fragmentation of viewers have left many TV networks and huge media conglomerates struggling the manage audience measurement and ratings. NBC Universal is showing less ads on their SVOD and OTT services than their linear TV as method to measure and compare their TV audiences to digital media subscribers. This change of weighted ratings also may mean less dependency on Nielsen and comScore in exchange for other live stream or real time services of ads. Steinberg supports this claim when he says, “Nielsen may no longer be a one-stop shop for measurement at a time when the industry is eager to go beyond simple demographics. But such overall ratings likely will remain a key ingredient amid a more diverse mix of metrics that could also mean more influence for measurement rivals like comScore” (1). In sum, there will be much deep rooted construction in the media metrics area as the increased digital streaming services and mobile platforms are included.
In the last few years, there have been small independent companies tracking media impressions as a new way of ratings for advertisements. Services like iSpot has been the number one source for real-time TV metrics for the 2018 Superbowl ads. Some other independent ratings sources include Telmetrics, Callsource and Nielsen. However, I think ratings will start to matter through big sports events like Superbowl and the Olympics. This year the Grammys ratings went down, and maybe partially the reason for this were because ads weren`t effective or memorable. Ad Age even predicted that the branding of events and its ads are becoming a huge trend and soon there could only be real-time ads and 6 second ads for certain sporting and entertainment events. (Oster p1). The alternative ways that audience metric services are tracking people are now through OTT shows and devices as well as lot devices. In ComScore`s Parallel Universes; Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms Screens and Devices, the change of measuring ratings is rapidly changing because it is “Moving Toward an addressable TV advertising future” (22). For me, this means that ads will be more individualized more creative and shorter in order to maintain the interests and subscriptions of OTT, OHH, and loT services. In sum, fragmentation of audiences through OTT services and mobile devices have already caused advertisers to use digital marketing and social media to target the same audiences, and will cause cable and broadcast companies to think out of the box for audience measurement for their cross-platform devices.
Steinberg, Brian. “TV Industry Struggles to Agree on Ratings Innovation.” Variety, 11 Apr. 2017, variety.com/2017/tv/features/nielsen-total-content-ratings-1202027752/.
Oster, Erik. “4 Advertising Trends to Expect From Super Bowl LII.” AdAge, 8 Jan. 2018, www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/4-advertising-trends-to-expect-from-super-bowl-lii/.
Fulgoni, Gian. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” ComScore, Inc., 8 June 2017, www.comscore.com/lat/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/Parallel-Universes-Measuring-Eyeballs-Across-Platforms-Screens-and-Devices.
Whether or not ratings matter is a very loaded question. The answer is yes, but it is not just about quantity anymore, but also quality of audiences. Ratings allow for independent creators on YouTube, Instagram, and Podcast services to cut deals with sponsors and keep their content free. This direct connection between advertising brands and online media content is growing more and more important, especially with YouTube’s recent ‘Adpocalypse’. According to Rachel Dunphy’s New York Magazine article following the Adpocalypse, “Both the boycott and the policy shift provoked outrage and panic from YouTube creators large and small, many of whom reported losing upwards of half of their income in April and May.” Due to the loss of YouTube advertising money content creators are diversifying their means of income so that they can continue to put out the content that their audiences appreciate. Some creators get money directly from fans via merchandising sales or a Patreon or another crowd funding source. While other creators show advertisers their ratings numbers and the dedication of their fan-bases to get sponsorships so that they can continue to put our content.
In Nielsen’s self released article “What we measure,” you see the shift from a pure quantity of audience perspective to a quality of audience perspective. In the article they detail how in the company’s infancy they measured for the most part just the number of eyeballs that an advertisement was likely to get in front of. Now with their analysis of audiences, online interactions, and more we see that Nielsen has had to adjust to the modern quality of audience measurement system. This is because some audiences are more likely to spread the news of certain shows, while others are dedicated to supporting their favorite online personalities in reaching success, and other audiences are far more passive in their consumption habits.
As noted in Adam Lella’s Comscore article How Important is the OTT Device Market if the ‘Future of TV is Apps’? it has been clear for sometime that a direct to consumer approach to media is the future. In my opinion this means that the archaic current vestiges of modern broadcast and basic cable will slowly fade into greater obscurity while content that is uninterrupted by advertisements or speaks directly to consumers will flourish. Broadcast and Cable networks will have to play catch up somehow. The way in which people consume programs outside of the realm of live events is never going back to the dark days of appointment television. Because of this, ratings of each, for a lack of better term, ‘episode’ of any piece of media will be less important. Importance will be based on the quality of audience it creates. Which shows get more subscriptions to HBO and Netflix? What Podcast Audience has the highest percentage of promotional code usage? Which YouTuber sells the most merchandise? These are the questions advertisers are asking themselves. Do ratings matter?: Yes, but the way in which ratings matter is constantly evolving. Ratings are no longer a static number, but more so an algorithm with fluctuating variables.
Konstantin Sergeyev. Source images: YouTube; Runeer/Getty Images. “Can YouTube Survive the Adpocalypse?” Select All, 28 Dec. 2017, nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/can-youtube-survive-the-adpocalypse.html.
Lella, Adam. “How Important Is the OTT Device Market If the 'Future of TV Is Apps'?” ComScore, Inc., www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/How-Important-is-the-OTT-Device-Market-if-the-Future-of-TV-is-Apps.
N.A. “TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
I think there is an illusion that with the rise of SVOD streaming services and OTT services that ratings have lost some meaning. I personally don’t think that’s exactly true. As Josef Adalian put it in his article “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore” for The Vulture, “We’re not in a post-ratings world – at least not yet” (Adalian). Ratings are still very important, if harder to obtain, but still influence important things, for example what programs will get advertisements.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the Nielson 2017 Q2 report we see that people are still very concerned with understanding the composition of households. This is so that programming can be better targeted to suite these household needs better. In this sense we can then see how ratings could be used to know if this targeting is working. Likewise as mentioned before the ratings determine the quality of advertisements a show can get which then can also be better targeted with these household demographics from Nielsen. In that way all these things work together to make a superior programming experience for all involved.
Similarly for that matter it is important to know who is watching SVOD services, but not in the same way necessary. When we look at the ComScore State of the OTT report we can see that they focus more on bulk numbers. It is important to know how many people are using these OTT services and how they are accessing these services, but sense these are subscription based services and not reliant on advertisements so they do not have a need to target them. That being said, that doesn’t mean there is no need for ratings on these newer services because it is still important to know what type of content people want to watch. Looking at it from this perspective it is clear how ratings are still important but perhaps what we examine is changing.
Looking back to the article from The Vulture, Adalian reminds us that, “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” but also that, “since the whole reason ratings exist is to help networks determine how much to charge for ad time, it only follows that the less important ad money becomes, the less all-important those Nielsen numbers are” (Adalian). This is exactly what I was getting at. While the purpose of the ratings may not differ depending on the exact service we are talking about, it does not mean that their use in the market is gone. Further I would venture to say that ratings will still be important in one way or another for a long time yet, as there will always be a benefit in the media market in knowing who is watching what and how they are watching it.
Works Cited:
Adalian, Joseph. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14AD, 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
ComScore. State of OTT An in-Depth Look at Today’s over-the-Top Content Consumption and Device Usage. ComScore, Apr. 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398996-dt-content-rid-17941267_1/courses/MSS49501_18SP/State%2Bof%2BOTT.pdf.
Nielsen. “The Nielsen Total Audience Report: Q2 2017.” Nielsen, 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398993-dt-content-rid-17941247_1/courses/MSS49501_18SP/Nielsen%20Total%20Audience%20Report%20Q2%202017.pdf.
When it comes to television, ratings don’t matter as much as they once did. I’m not saying they don’t matter at all, but social media buzz is valued slightly more when it comes to defining the success of shows. When a show is all over social media that is today’s equivalent of having good ratings. This makes me think especially of Netflix originals: Stranger Things and Black Mirror are all the buzz on social media, but we don’t have physical ratings for these shows.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Josef Adalian, “almost every artistic endeavor in Hollywood comes attached to a ranking of some sort, a numerical report card that allows the town to declare said project a success or failure — and then gossip about it endlessly.” Adalian’s article in Vulture goes on to explain that the only exception to this rule is Netflix. Netflix and its competition in SVOD have changed the way we rate our entertainment.
I’m aware that SVOD throws a wrench into the concept of ratings. Ratings exist so that we know who is watching shows and so that the networks know which shows to renew. Adalian claims that “the better the show performed in the ratings, the more the networks could charge advertisers, and the more money they’d make. But in an era of depressed ratings [and SVOD] few shows can make monster profits from ad sales alone.”
As a social media lover, I think ratings seem less relevant in today’s society because of the weight social media carries. I know when I see a show buzzed about online it intrigues me. The only reason why I would consider watching Orange is The New Black is because of its social media presence. As it turns out, I hated the show, but the ratings wouldn’t have mattered to me either way. I think I would say that social media would be an alternative way of tracking media consumption; its something that we all pay attention to but before being a communications major, I had never even heard of Nielsen. Shouldn’t that say something?
Just like millions of people are cord-cutting, maybe the top media conglomerates are rate-cutting. As it stands, not only are OTT devices contributing more to the industry, but cord-cutters also consume more media than the average cable subscriber. According to Mike Rich at comScore, “the average OTT viewing home in the U.S. spends 49 hours a month viewing OTT content, cord-cutter homes consume 79 hours of OTT content a month (2.5 hours per day) – about 60 percent more than the average OTT viewer.”
My point here is that ratings still matter, but in a changing media environment, they just aren’t as significant as they once were. SVOD is changing the industry one original content show at a time.
Adalian, Josef. "How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix’s Hidden Ratings." Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015,
www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
Adalian, Josef. "TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?" Vulture, 14 May 2017,
www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html. Accessed 4 Feb.
2018.
Rich, Mike. "What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters."
ComScore, 12 June 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/
What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
Ratings will always play a major role in networks choosing to promote or take away certain shows. Media consumption is tracked through the behaviors of households of cord-cutters to see why they do it, and what media they choose instead. Studying the cord-cutter tendencies helps show what the direction or future of the content will look like. The average household in America viewing OTT content spends 49 hours a month viewing; cord-cutting homes use 79 hours of OTT content a month, and that is just about 60 percent more than the average home (Rich). Cord-cutters spend more time on streaming services like Hulu and Netflix than the average OTT viewer. Homes that make an income of $75k or less are more likely in general to be a cord-cutter than homes that make more than $75k (Rich). An average cable bill is around $100 dollars a month, so it would make sense that they cut the cord because in one year they lose $1200 dollars to Pay TV.
ReplyDeleteRatings are very important in today’s society. Most advertisers either look to hit the most prominent shows, or aim at a certain target audience. If they do not have ratings, they would be “shooting blind” to make some type of profit. For example, an advertiser might promote children’s toys on a kid’s channel more than an adult related channel based on ratings. Pay TV is very reliant on these ratings, because they help determine if a current show will have another season. Networks today focus on the youth of a show’s fan base, loyalty, buzz, how cheap the show is to make, and whether they own it or not.
Netflix is a genius with regards to what they do involving the ratings. They choose to not release ratings. If one show is not getting the same viewership that another one is, no one will know. Then, the consumers can talk about all different types of shows because there is not a physical statistic that shows what consumers prefer to stream. The only thing Netflix actually releases is the schedule of upcoming shows, which gets the buzz of the fan base.
Since there is not a worry about advertising time or making cable operators pay networks subscription fees, Netflix just makes money from their regular fee and does not need to release ratings (Adalian). Willa Paskin stated that “Netflix is the real alchemist, the magician who, by withholding rating information altogether has turned every one of its shows into a smash hit” (Paskin). This is all a part of Netflix’s big business model; they release less information to the public and other media companies so they know how to target an audience better than anyone else can. This in turn gives them a competitive advantage in today’s media consumption market. At the same time, other networks cannot compare their hit shows to others and Netflix. Ratings matter on both sides of the spectrum. If you are Pay TV, hopefully they are good for your shows because your job is lying in the balance. If you are Netflix, never release anything, because then you know what types of shows media customers prefer to consume.
Adalian, Josef. “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix's Hidden Ratings.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
Paskin, Willa. “In the Streaming Age, Nothing's a Hit Anymore.” Slate Magazine, 12 Nov. 2015, www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/11/tv_ratings_in_the_streaming_age_why_nothing_can_be_called_a_hit_anymore.html.
Rich, Mike. “What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters.” ComScore, Inc., 12 June 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
I believe that while media has adapted over the years and audience consumption of this media has changed as a result, ratings still do matter. Historically, ratings have been very important, particularly in the mid 1900s when there were only three networks. At this time, ratings were focused on consumer age and gender and were crucial to advertising companies and to the network hosting the programing (Fulgoni). As technology began to play a greater role in media consumption, these ratings continued to be crucial and their scope changed from being solely television based to also including other devices and services that consumers use to view media. This new media includes digital devices, OTT (over the top) devices and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. More specifically, digital devices include computers, tablets, and mobile devices such as smartphones. OTT devices include smart TVs and streaming services and IoT devices include audio systems, smart speakers and wearables. Measuring viewership and consumption of media through these new devices and services has become particularly important as their use has come to overshadow that of TV use for most viewers (Fulgoni).
ReplyDeleteNielsen has been the company providing ratings since 1950 and they continue to measure what is important today (TV Ratings). Nielsen is aware that ratings do not work the same way they did when the company first began and content was only viewed on television sets. The company’s website explains that “[t]oday’s program content is viewed on more than just television sets. Consumers are watching via the internet and mobile devices, in-home and out-of-home, live and time-shifted, free and paid, rebroadcast and original programs” (TV Ratings). Nielsen has adapted its company with the changing media forms consumers use to measure ratings for all these platforms. Due to the fact that consumers in the age groups of 18-34 and 35-54, view digital media more than TV, this company’s willingness and ability to adapt has been crucial to its success (Fulgoni).
Ratings are also important because they change consumer behavior (Paskin). More specifically, ratings can persuade viewers by providing them with information about which shows are trending, convincing them of these shows’ quality. In fact, this is the case to such an extent that Netflix does not release its shows’ ratings so as to not discourage viewers from watching shows that may currently have low ratings (Paskin). It also allows viewers to realize what is going on in the world around them and recognize views outside of their own. “...ratings matter because ratings are a rejoinder to egotism, a tether to reality. Ratings keep us-barely- from mistaking our interests and our test from everyone else’s, at a time when it has never been easier to conflate the two” (Paskin).
While Nielsen has incorporated additional ways to track media consumption by broadening the means of consumption that they are measuring, other companies have made changes to their measurements as well. ComScore, an analytics and media statistics company, has altered the way they measure viewership by “de-duplicating” audiences (Fulgoni). The company uses this term to describe the process they use to ensure that individuals consuming media on several different devices are not counted twice in ratings. Changes like those made by ComScore and Nielsen are demonstrating that adapting rating methods is more important than finding alternative means altogether.
Works Cited
DeleteGian Fulgoni. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” 8
June 2017,
quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2398994-dt-content-rid-17941258_1/c
ourses/MSS49501_18SP/Parallel%2BUniverses%2BMeasuring%2BEyeball
s%2BAcross%2BPlatforms%2C%2BScreens%2Band%2BDevices.
Pdf.
Paskin, Willa. “In the Streaming Age, Nothing's a Hit Anymore .” Slate Magazine, 12 Nov. 2015,
www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/11/tv_ratings_in_the_streaming_age_why_nothi
Ng_can_be_called_a_hit_anymore.html.
“TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen,
www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html
All good (and in this case mediocre) things must come to an end and the same goes for the Nielsen rating system. While it may be true that, “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter (Adalain),” the rating system as we know it will have to change. In the world of SVOD and OTT services, the majority of cable shows are facing double-digit declines in viewership and networks are turning to other methods to turn high profits (Adalain).
ReplyDeleteMost of these methods make use of these SVOD and OTT services. Companies make investments in the shows themselves, looking to make profits off the show’s streaming rights and international sales (Adalain). These methods take advantage of the long tail and offer cable companies an alternative to advertising as a sole point of profit, reducing the importance of ratings. Companies are clearly taking this into account when selecting which shows to air. To demonstrate this, Adalain provides the example of Taken having an easier time getting renewed than Timeless, despite Timeless having better ratings. This, according to Adalain’s sources was done in the interest of international sales and streaming rights (Adalain).
In the meantime, the Nielsen Report’s method of representing the viewing habits of Americans leaves plenty of room for inaccuracy as explained by Melvin Mar, who served as a former Nielsen family along with his wife. Aside from testing a very small sample size as Mar alone represented one percent of all homes in Los Angeles, too much of this system ran on the honor system (Mar). Participants were asked to “log in” by pushing a numbered button before watching TV. Mar often messed with this system, sometimes for fun and other times for helping directors he liked (Mar). Nothing prevented him from doing that. Aside from that, the value of his views was judged by questions like, “Did you recently buy a car?” when determining what markets he fit while profiling him (Mar). With such a small sample size, there is too much room for random error here, especially when online ads can track people’s searches using cookies. Something needs to change, and fast.
Companies are looking for alternatives to the old Nielsen method, but having difficulty agreeing on exactly how to determine who is viewing each show and whether or not consumers are actually paying attention. Meanwhile, Nielsen is struggling with how much to value streaming data which may be deemed unreliable (Steinberg) For many companies, the solution to this problem is tracking this information for themselve using a wide variety of different techniques (Steinberg). But at that rate, how are advertisers supposed to trust these statistics or even honestly compare them when deciding where to put their money? What Steinberg claims is that Nielsen will take a backseat, no longer seen as the end-all-be-all rating system, but acting as a third party system to keep individually produced rating systems in check.
Adalian, Joseph. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14AD, 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Mar, Melvin. “We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015,www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html.
Steinberg, Brian. “TV Industry Struggles to Agree on Ratings Innovation.” Variety, 12 Apr. 2017, www.variety.com/2017/tv/features/nielsen-total-content-ratings-1202027752/.
While the term “ratings” might seem like it doesn’t have the same power behind it as it once did in terms of viewership, it still holds significant to today. However, rather than having zero significance at all, I feel as though ratings have evolved as our platforms of viewing have evolved. As Joseph Adalian notes, “After a decade of audience erosion, including double-digit declines for the vast majority of shows this season, networks have finally accepted reality: People aren’t watching TV the way they used to, and selling commercials isn’t enough to pay the bills (and make a big profit).” With streaming services introducing audiences to a new and more convenient way of viewing (and finding much success in doing so), traditional ratings don’t hold the same volume as they once did. As Paul Bond also notes, “EMarketer says that the average adult American watched four hours and 10 minutes of TV — be it free, cable or satellite — per day in 2017, but that number will fall to three hours and 47 minutes in 2019. Meanwhile, time spent with digital media was one hour and 10 minutes in 2016, and that will grow to one hour and 26 minutes in 2019.” Companies such as Netflix and Hulu don’t release their viewership as other traditional television companies might. Even Yohana Desta notes how the company Symphony Advanced Media claimed to have cracked the code into figuring out Netflix’s views, a claim which Netflix officials often shut down. She states, “Through it all, Netflix has remained staunchly oblique about its ratings numbers, to the points where it’s become a running joke in the industry.”
ReplyDeleteBut while these SVOD services have created a new form of popular viewership, ratings still matter for traditional television. Again, the term doesn’t quite hold the same significance, but still has significance. Networks still need a way of seeing if their show is hitting with audiences and the most straightforward way of knowing is through viewership. For a personal example, I’ve always been a fan of the show, The Walking Dead, and yet in the recent seasons I’ve found it losing my interest. In its early seasons, I remember how it would pull 7-9 million views on it’s season premieres. Even though I don’t really watch anymore, I still see articles on how the show has been facing significant drops in views versus the level it was once off and that has to be an automatic red flag to these television networks that their show isn’t succeeding. While ratings might not have the same meaning or significance as they once did, it’s important to note that they still do matter in this industry despite shifts in platforms.
Adalian, Josef. "TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?" Vulture, 14 May 2017,
www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix’s Ratings Finally Gives Up” Vanity Fair. 19 April 2017.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-ratings-symphony
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu’s Most Popular Shows Revealed”. The Hollywood Reporter. 4 Oct. 2017,
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130
Ratings are good to know and can help companies decide what content to advertise, but they don’t matter as much as they used to. They mainly tell us “who” we are and “what” we’re watching. The important thing to know now, especially for streaming services, are the “why,” “when,” and “where” aspects of viewership.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of traffic amongst available content and we now actively decide what to watch rather than just accepting what is on at a particular time. When In Living Color was on at the same time as Saturday Night Live, decisions were made by the public which were better thanks to viewership ratings. It is a different ball game when hundreds of hours are uploaded to YouTube by the minute (Fortunelords, 2018).
It is now 2018 and the battle for attention is becoming more complex. Cord-cutters, or those without cable or satellite, usually have lower household income (Rich, 2017). This is where “why” has become more important than “what.” Netflix is at that beautiful range of $10-$11 per month compared to the $60-$70 per month price of satellite television. If the difference is between eating vegetables versus watching Game of Thrones, I know what most households will choose.
Netflix and Hulu have these wonderful phenomena called an “app.” They are wonderful because you can watch anything, anywhere; the locations are unlimited (with the exception of needing internet access or mobile data). With apps, viewers are no longer confined to a television or a fixed position. This is the point that “where” takes away from ratings.
Nielsen as a ratings company is notorious for monitoring television and recording data through face-to-face interviews (Mar, 2015). When people are constantly on the move, they won’t accurately be able to record how long they are watching a piece of content unless they are watching it from beginning to end.
Also, “where” is not a traditional part of what is revealed in the ratings. If that can be better tracked, it would be good to know if people are watching content while on the move or traditionally watching television. Who is recording what people are watching on their friend’s laptop or in a restaurant?
If rating systems aren’t accurate, then what is the point of using them? Netflix clearly doesn’t want to make their creators and competition nervous by not releasing their ratings or tracking data (Desta, 2017). Those involved in the ratings system can lie or give wrong information (Mar, 2015). An alternative way to track information is to track the devices. Don’t only go based off of surveys and Nielsen’s TV. recorder. Have people willingly download apps to their devices that records content viewership. This can also be done on smart TVs.
Works Cited
Desta, Y. (2017, May 25). Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives
Up. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-ratings-symphony
Mar, M. (2015, December 01). We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like. Retrieved
February 06, 2018, from http://www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html
Rich, M. (2017, June 12). What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of
Cord-Cutters. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters
Youtube Statistics - 2018. (2018, February 05). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from
https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/
Ratings will always matter in the broadcast and cable world. However, their representation in over-the-top (OTT) services and out-of-home (OOH) services are changing. Audience tracking on traditional TV sets is shifting to digital media and OTT services. TV networks are struggling to create one method to measure audiences across platforms. Variety reporter Brian Steinberg says “(If) the industry can’t come to a consensus on which solution is best to evolve TV’s hopelessly broken measurement system beyond its current reliance solely on Nielsen monitoring of linear TV audiences, it risks losing no small portion of the approximately $44 billion in advertising dollars that ad-buyer Magna Global says was spent on national TV last year” (1). The fragmentation of viewers have left many TV networks and huge media conglomerates struggling the manage audience measurement and ratings. NBC Universal is showing less ads on their SVOD and OTT services than their linear TV as method to measure and compare their TV audiences to digital media subscribers. This change of weighted ratings also may mean less dependency on Nielsen and comScore in exchange for other live stream or real time services of ads. Steinberg supports this claim when he says, “Nielsen may no longer be a one-stop shop for measurement at a time when the industry is eager to go beyond simple demographics. But such overall ratings likely will remain a key ingredient amid a more diverse mix of metrics that could also mean more influence for measurement rivals like comScore” (1). In sum, there will be much deep rooted construction in the media metrics area as the increased digital streaming services and mobile platforms are included.
ReplyDeleteIn the last few years, there have been small independent companies tracking media impressions as a new way of ratings for advertisements. Services like iSpot has been the number one source for real-time TV metrics for the 2018 Superbowl ads. Some other independent ratings sources include Telmetrics, Callsource and Nielsen. However, I think ratings will start to matter through big sports events like Superbowl and the Olympics. This year the Grammys ratings went down, and maybe partially the reason for this were because ads weren`t effective or memorable. Ad Age even predicted that the branding of events and its ads are becoming a huge trend and soon there could only be real-time ads and 6 second ads for certain sporting and entertainment events. (Oster p1). The alternative ways that audience metric services are tracking people are now through OTT shows and devices as well as lot devices. In ComScore`s Parallel Universes; Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms Screens and Devices, the change of measuring ratings is rapidly changing because it is “Moving Toward an addressable TV advertising future” (22). For me, this means that ads will be more individualized more creative and shorter in order to maintain the interests and subscriptions of OTT, OHH, and loT services. In sum, fragmentation of audiences through OTT services and mobile devices have already caused advertisers to use digital marketing and social media to target the same audiences, and will cause cable and broadcast companies to think out of the box for audience measurement for their cross-platform devices.
Steinberg, Brian. “TV Industry Struggles to Agree on Ratings Innovation.” Variety, 11
Apr. 2017, variety.com/2017/tv/features/nielsen-total-content-ratings-1202027752/.
Oster, Erik. “4 Advertising Trends to Expect From Super Bowl LII.” AdAge, 8 Jan. 2018, www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/4-advertising-trends-to-expect-from-super-bowl-lii/.
Fulgoni, Gian. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” ComScore, Inc., 8 June 2017, www.comscore.com/lat/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/Parallel-Universes-Measuring-Eyeballs-Across-Platforms-Screens-and-Devices.
Whether or not ratings matter is a very loaded question. The answer is yes, but it is not just about quantity anymore, but also quality of audiences. Ratings allow for independent creators on YouTube, Instagram, and Podcast services to cut deals with sponsors and keep their content free. This direct connection between advertising brands and online media content is growing more and more important, especially with YouTube’s recent ‘Adpocalypse’. According to Rachel Dunphy’s New York Magazine article following the Adpocalypse, “Both the boycott and the policy shift provoked outrage and panic from YouTube creators large and small, many of whom reported losing upwards of half of their income in April and May.” Due to the loss of YouTube advertising money content creators are diversifying their means of income so that they can continue to put out the content that their audiences appreciate. Some creators get money directly from fans via merchandising sales or a Patreon or another crowd funding source. While other creators show advertisers their ratings numbers and the dedication of their fan-bases to get sponsorships so that they can continue to put our content.
ReplyDeleteIn Nielsen’s self released article “What we measure,” you see the shift from a pure quantity of audience perspective to a quality of audience perspective. In the article they detail how in the company’s infancy they measured for the most part just the number of eyeballs that an advertisement was likely to get in front of. Now with their analysis of audiences, online interactions, and more we see that Nielsen has had to adjust to the modern quality of audience measurement system. This is because some audiences are more likely to spread the news of certain shows, while others are dedicated to supporting their favorite online personalities in reaching success, and other audiences are far more passive in their consumption habits.
As noted in Adam Lella’s Comscore article How Important is the OTT Device Market if the ‘Future of TV is Apps’? it has been clear for sometime that a direct to consumer approach to media is the future. In my opinion this means that the archaic current vestiges of modern broadcast and basic cable will slowly fade into greater obscurity while content that is uninterrupted by advertisements or speaks directly to consumers will flourish. Broadcast and Cable networks will have to play catch up somehow. The way in which people consume programs outside of the realm of live events is never going back to the dark days of appointment television. Because of this, ratings of each, for a lack of better term, ‘episode’ of any piece of media will be less important. Importance will be based on the quality of audience it creates. Which shows get more subscriptions to HBO and Netflix? What Podcast Audience has the highest percentage of promotional code usage? Which YouTuber sells the most merchandise? These are the questions advertisers are asking themselves. Do ratings matter?: Yes, but the way in which ratings matter is constantly evolving. Ratings are no longer a static number, but more so an algorithm with fluctuating variables.
Konstantin Sergeyev. Source images: YouTube; Runeer/Getty Images. “Can YouTube Survive the Adpocalypse?” Select All, 28 Dec. 2017, nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/can-youtube-survive-the-adpocalypse.html.
Lella, Adam. “How Important Is the OTT Device Market If the 'Future of TV Is Apps'?” ComScore, Inc., www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/How-Important-is-the-OTT-Device-Market-if-the-Future-of-TV-is-Apps.
N.A. “TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.