TV currency

HyphaMetrics Co-Founder President Joanna Drews is resuming the role of CEO after Chris Wilson stepped down late last week.

Now that alternative TV currencies have passed the initial sniff tests, how should buyers and sellers compare their viewership numbers? The leaders of Nielsen, Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp gathered onstage during the Coalition of Innovative Media Measurement summit in New York City to answer that question.

Nielsen held a press briefing to reassert itself as the go-to TV measurement and currency company ahead of upfront negotiations. To back up its assertion, it shared a status update on its currency offerings and a comparison to its competitors.

The MRC and the broadcaster-backed joint industry committee released a joint statement to clarify the difference between them, which has been a charged topic ever since the JIC formed last year.

This was such a busy year in CTV land that we had to launch a dedicated newsletter just to keep up with all the trends, from measurement, currency, targeting and attribution to streaming data, identity, supply-path optimization and new ad formats – just to name a few.

TV programmers and agencies say they’re ready to transact their ad buys using a measurement provider other than Nielsen. But panel-based currency is proving more difficult to dethrone than anticipated.

Agencies are busy gearing up to buy client campaigns on alt currency this upfront season. But the transition to alt currency is a work in progress, and the industry isn’t dumping Nielsen entirely.

This year, TV upfront spend will likely be softer, and buyers will be slower to make long-term commitments. Consider it a plateau.

Nielsen is reverting back to its panel-based C3 and C7 ratings that track average commercial time over three or seven days. The currency switch-up just weeks ahead of the upfronts has only added to the industry’s mounting frustrations with Nielsen.

The JIC is looking to set the record straight on not just its requirements for currency, but also that it believes those requirements are sufficient even without requiring MRC accreditation.