Missed you!

I am guilty of a cardinal sin of social media. Taking too long between posts on a site which is only driven by its content!  Let’s move on and promise each other it won’t happen again. 

It was with particular delight I read that Nielsen had data errors which lead to incorrect ratings during the new season of shows.  I am delighted for a couple of reasons. One is Nielsen has ALWAYS been susceptible to rating errors, especially in diary markets where it was once reported that ratings numbers are only within 10% of the true numbers 10% of the time.  How are they even able to sell data that corrupt?  Secondly raw numbers are worthless.  So 1.8 rating means what?  If I’m selling skateboards a 1.8 in 18-49 just tells me I have lots if waste because I need to reach 18-24 year olds.  Likewise if I’m selling reverse mortgages, those numbers mean nothing to me.

Rentrak is the new kid on the data block and they will be pushing Old Man Nielsen out the door pretty soon.  With their mix of viewing numbers and contextual data on just WHO is viewing and their ability to do mobile measurements puts them light years ahead of Nielsen.   The internet is taking content (TV) and fragmenting it even further.  I had someone complain to me last week that one of the networks had a new channel position and that made them upset.  I asked them, “Do you have Netfilx?”  They said yes, and I asked them, “What channel is that on?” 

This is the future of TV.  Welcome to it Nielsen.