Local TV stations are working to tune in a new methodology for counting viewers of the 6 p.m. news and morning talk shows.
The TVB, the trade organization that represents more than 800 TV stations and TV broadcast groups, is pressing Madison Avenue to start using viewer impressions as a base for striking ad deals rather than continuing to rely on TV ratings. The idea, says Steve Lanzano, the group’s president and CEO, is to find better ways to allow advertisers to buy across multiple local outlets – not only the linear programs on a local TV station, but “across our video asserts, across our web sites, our streaming services.”
The moves are just the latest in an industry working to find better ways to measure audiences as they are growing harder to track. With TV viewers migrating to streaming video on demand and mobile content, ratings have dwindled. In the case of local TV programming, some programs no longer sustain ratings measurement. Use of impressions – the actual number of people watching, rather than the percentage of possible viewers who tuned in – would give advertisers a more granular look at local station viewership.
