Sunday, November 2, 2008

Looking Beyond Ratings For Top TV Shows

Forbes: Everything you know about what's hot on television may be wrong. Start-up Networked Insights released a study this week challenging Nielsen's ratings system. Instead of counting households, it measures online interactions, such as people posting videos clips about a TV show and inviting friends to online fan groups.

One example of the discrepancy: In late September, Nielsen rated the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" as the fifth-most-popular show on TV. Online, however, Networked says the show was No. 1, with over 65 million interactions.

This information is just a "piece of the puzzle that advertisers didn't quantify before," something important to an advertiser that wants a show's cool to rub off on its brand, says John Lowell, SMG media buyer. "But Nielsen data is still going to be valuable."

Nice, verry niiice
Lovely Nielsen. Lovely. Acknowledging the massive engagements and interactions online, looking at those figures and quantifying them into real value is great.

However..."John Lowell, a vice president in charge of analytics at Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group media buyer. "It's not a black and white," he says. "It's a piece of the puzzle we didn't quantify before, so Nielsen is still going to be valuable." "
w.t.f? (pronouced double-u-tee-eff)
Not black and white?
The only thing that's screwed is the banners and crap around the content. But the content itself, gold!

hmm, and whilst we battle this conundrum, best of luck to the US presidential candidates!

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