by Dave Zornow
Published in the Cynopsis:Weekender, 11//02/06
CBS’s David Poltrack announced told an ad research industry forum last week that there are few in the insutry who would dispute that commercial ratings are a good idea – the difficulty is deciding how we go about doing it. That certainly is a majority opinion. If by majority, we mean the 1 ½ broadcast networks and the handful of agencies who are speaking about this passionately in public.
There’s no disputing that commercial ratings sound like a great idea. It sounds so good. Why wouldn’t advertisers want to pay for the value they were delivered. Although, I have to be honest, that rationale didn’t go over so well when I told the owner of the beach house I rented that I was only going to pay for four days instead of seven because it rained Monday-Wednesday.
Its one of those arguments that sounds so good, especially when many of our industry leaders go on record in the trade press saying its an idea whose time has come. How could they be wrong?
After all commercial ratings has a truth-y ring to it that is hard to deny. When was the last time we heard something that sounded so right, that it couldn’t possibly be wrong? Oh, I remember. It was Saddam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Can someone remind me how that one turned out?
The problem with commercial ratings is that although it screams of accountability and great bargains to be had for advertisers its likely to disappoint. For twenty years researchers have been wringing their hands about fragmentation and declining ratings. Limiting the reported ratings use of handfuls of minutes minutes per program isn’t going to make this any more stable. Which is what the 4As’ original analysis of the stability of commercial ratings concluded, too (and where are the teams of trade journalists digging this old report up and asking why what was unstable last year is trending this year?)
Economically, it will reduce the available supply of GRPs. Which, given the same demand, will drive up prices. Right? Worse still, are what commercial ratings make us think we know. After you remove the DVR playback and spots viewed at high speed, you are left with live TV viewers. But you don’t know they are live. In fact, we can’t even prove they are in the room and watching those spots. And advertisers want to base multi-million dollar decisions on these assumptions?
Wikipedia credits Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert as the modern originator of truthiness, an appeal to emotion and tool of rhetoric in contemporary socio-political discourse citing the decision to invade Iraq looking for non-existent WMDs. For the media business, commercial ratings might just prove to be our truthiness moment. ##
Dave Zornow is President/TNG Research, a media research consultancy and applications development company that works with media sellers and research providers.
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