FORT LAUDERDALE — In an age where connected TV providers can give advertisers accurate viewing data, hot off the box, what good is the decades-old method of measuring TV audiences using panels of viewers?
That is a question both Rentrak and Nielsen are hoping to address – the former by merging with comScore, and the latter by doubling its panel size.
But some executives question whether that will improve matters at all, speaking at the annual Beet Retreat summit.
“(Nielsen) going from 50,000 to 100,000 just doesn’t really cut it in this world,” said GroupM Global chairman Irwin Gotlieb.
Cablevision Systems COO Kristin Dolan agreed. “In New York, we have more channels on the dial than there are people meters in our footprint,” she said.
“We have a cable network in our footprint that was promoting a new series… they wanted to advertise against people that had watched the previous season.
“When they looked at Nielsen, they were able to get a 13 sample size against their show. When we looked back, we found 260,000 homes that had watched the show the previous season.
“So we promoted for them. They had a 13.9% lift in viewership for customers that had seen the addressable campaign versus the regular campaign.”
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.