Simulmedia’s Morgan On 2023 Macro Media Shifts

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Legal papers filed in Washington, DC, may feel like million miles away from the shores of Puerto Rico.

But, for Dave Morgan, founder and CEO of Simulmedia, they were top of mind all the same.

Speaking at Beet Retreat 2023 San Juan, Morgan described how he sees the shifting tides of the digital media industry.

Google suggestion

Ahead of the retreat, the US Department of Justice sued Google for monopolizing digital ad technologies.

It accused the company of “a pervasive and systemic pattern of misconduct through which Google sought to consolidate market power and stave off free-market competition”.

Morgan sees up-side for all in a Google break-up, even Google.

“If Google spun out its ad tech business, it would do significantly better outside than it does inside,” he said to Beet.TV contributor Rob Williams.

“I think it would be a very valuable business, and I think it could really advance our industry if we had an independent Google ad tech platform.”

JIC power

Before Morgan flew to Puerto Rico, US national TV programmers Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) agreed to form a Joint Industry Committee (JIC) with OpenAP to create a measurement certification process for cross-platform viewing.

That comes as a response to the hole left by the removal of Nielsen’s MRC accreditation, and the growing interest the companies are taking in an array of alternative measurement providers.

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“The US is unusual in that we don’t have a JIG or a JIC, probably because we actually have quite a few significant sellers,” Morgan said.

“It typically is in markets where the government is driving it and very involved because you’re controlling an individual monopoly or two.

“But I think it’s clearly there’s a desire to come together around some standards and pushing measurement and I think they well know what they want to get done.”

Nielsen’s future

Measuring Cross-Media: Nielsen ONE Aims To Solve The Unsolved

Meanwhile, however, Nielsen has been developing its Nielsen ONE solution to answer the cross-platform measurement demand.

It promises “four screen de-duplicated reach and frequency as the table stakes.”

Morgan says ONE is “robust,” and he doesn’t think Nielsen is over. “Much like television isn’t going away, it’s just becoming more digital and more cross-channel,” he said.

You’re watching coverage of Beet Retreat San Juan 2023, presented by LiveRamp, Madhive, Magnite, Paramount, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions and VideoAmp. For more videos from the Beet Retreat, please visit this page.