Follow The Yellow Brick Road: Pulling Back The Curtain On TV Measurement

Revealing metadata as the ‘great and powerful’ factor on the path to currency 

TV measurement is often made to seem more complex than it needs to be. We’re all grasping for the right metaphor and the promise of reasonable simplicity just within reach. 

Why are all sides of the TV advertising industry stuck in endless measurement or “currency wars?” It’s a mystery that can only be solved by pulling back the curtain and revealing how the system’s wizards are actually working.

For decades, TV measurement operated much like the Land of Oz — with one all-powerful entity controlling the narrative while the industry accepted pronouncements from behind the curtain without question. In this dual linear TV and streaming environment that curtain has been pulled back on viewership, revealing not one wizard but multiple players, each with their own approaches to quantifying and qualifying audience analytics. 

This great unveiling has shown us that multiple ways of measuring viewership can coexist and compete. We thrive as an industry when the mystery gives way to transparency and choice.

While we've exposed the wizards of viewership data, there’s another curtain that remains largely closed — the one concealing the critical role that metadata plays in the TV measurement equation. 

The multi-currency reality

The TV measurement ecosystem has undergone a fundamental shift. No longer are we limited to a single point of negotiation based on household, panel-level data. Today, the industry has embraced alternatives that came to market because of access to big data in the form of TV viewership, that wasn't previously available thanks to the digital transformation of the entertainment industry. 

This open access to data has accelerated innovation, and fueled competition for a better way to define transactional currencies and measure performance overall. It has opened doors for more ways to plan, measure and activate advertising across multiple video platforms. Regardless of whether you're using traditional demographics or advanced audiences, these calculations depend entirely on accurate program identification through transparent, reliable and comprehensive content metadata. 

Programming detail completes the currency equation with viewership.  If we can’t define the content viewed, then how can we effectively define audiences, set rates and guarantees with confidence? It is the single most important big data set that is often overlooked. It’s factual and not behavioral so, not as glamorous and sexy for the headlines.  Consider metadata the spine to viewership data. Without it, there is no viewership therefore, no currency to calculate. That’s a headline.

Given its equal importance, we should be questioning what’s behind the curtain when it comes to metadata. Are we asking how far I can leverage its power beyond use for the glass screen and the consumer discovery it powers? How can it bring transparency into the negotiation process, particularly in the age of programmatic?  Do I have the most comprehensive source to go deep into content catalogs across genres where my target audience gravitates? Are my currency calculations optimized, accordingly? What are my options?

Are we even asking these questions?  The good news is yes, some are, but not all. 

Combating measurement challenges

No system can be immune to unpredictability. Viewership patterns can shift dramatically due to weather events, service outages or unexpected program changes like sports events running into overtime. And as the media landscape is ever more fragmented, the best thing measurement models can do is adapt quickly and reliably. 

In this environment of constant change, metadata provides a critical constant. From beginning to end, you have a program with a persistent ID — something that in a cross-platform world you want to track, whether it originated on linear TV or streaming.

This persistent identification enables cross-platform measurement and creates the foundation for fraud prevention and currency calculations. When content is properly identified through reliable metadata, our industry can better distinguish genuine inventory from questionable sources.

Ready to pull back the curtain?

Competition drives innovation, not just in viewership measurement but also in the metadata that supports it. It's good, then, to have more than one metadata set at our collective disposal. 

Independence and neutrality are the prerequisites for the ability to act on choice.

In addition to maintaining those values, TV measurement success — no matter which part of the landscape you represent — will increasingly belong to those that recognize program and schedule metadata’s indispensable role in the measurement ecosystem. 

By establishing reliable content identification that works across platforms and providers, we can leave the curtain open and establish a more transparent, effective measurement landscape where advertisers can truly reach the right audiences in the right contexts.

The future of TV measurement doesn't lie in choosing a single currency provider. But allowing multiple approaches to coexist and complement each other — with metadata serving as the common language — sure sounds like the Oz of Advertising we’d all enjoy.