NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and TVB have released a study examining how local viewing is measured across television, mobile devices, browsers, streaming platforms and out-of-home environments.
The study, authored by Patti Cohen, also identifies critical data gaps in today’s syndicated local measurement systems and assesses how these limitations affect the accuracy and completeness of local video audience insights.
“As local video consumption continues to expand across new platforms, the industry needs to build on recent progress and take steps to plug current gaps, evolving measurement approaches to account for all viewing,” Jon Watts, managing director at CIMM, said. “TV isn’t declining, it’s just becoming more diverse, spreading across different platforms and devices. Measurement needs to follow. This important study helps to diagnose the current situation, so that we can understand where we are and work to establish the foundation for a more future-ready local measurement ecosystem.”
The study stressed that local television channels and content—from news and syndicated programming to sports—continue to play a vital role in consumers' media consumption. However, the ecosystem has become increasingly fragmented and complex, spanning broadcast, CTV apps, mobile streams, FAST channels, digital-only programming and social video, the study found. Much of this viewing is hard to measure and is not currently fully captured in syndicated measurement solutions. CIMM and TVB estimate that 20% to 30% of local viewing is not credited in syndicated measurement systems.
In the report, CIMM and TVB outline three areas of priority where industry collaboration can help improve the quality of measurement:
- Upfront collaboration: Early alignment between buyers and sellers on what is counted and how it is reported in a simple, consistent way across markets and screens to help reduce friction later in planning, posting, and reconciliation.
- Enablement: Broader adoption of tagging, mapping and integration requirements to ensure local digital and streaming audiences are fully captured.
- Shared standards: Consistent stream tagging, source identifiers and metadata mapping across platforms to account for gaps in device coverage, inconsistent inclusion logic and differences in methodologies.
“This study represents the first comprehensive effort to map how local audiences are measured across environments,” said Hadassa Gerber, executive vice president and chief research officer at TVB. “By having broadcasters, measurement vendors, and technology platforms come together around clear definitions and shared data practices, we can ensure that every local viewer across every screen is counted.”
The full report is available here.
