Related Articles
Subscribe to the Greater Public newsletter to stay updated.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Nielsen recently announced that the company is shifting local TV from ratings-based to impressions-based buying and selling (i.e. cost per thousand or CPM) as of January 2022, as it integrates broadband-only homes into its metrics. And local radio may not be far behind. In fact, in major markets where most buys are agency-driven, this is already starting to take place.
A shift from ratings to impressions would change media measurement from the percentage of the population reached by an ad campaign (rating points) to the projected number of viewers or listeners reached. Driving the shift is a desire from media buyers and agencies to simplify cross-platform media buying; transacting on impressions allows for a common metric that can be used across media channels.
That’s not to say that rating points are totally going away, as gross rating points are important for planning purposes in order to account for reach and frequency. According to Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly, “Impressions aren’t coming at the expense of ratings but in addition to them. You still have to plan with ratings points.”
This is an evolving situation, and means different things for different-sized markets right now. As with most media trends, this shift is likely to be adopted by large markets first, and for these markets the shift is potentially good news, as it will allow stations to get away from competing solely on broadcast ratings and roll-up their digital and broadcast numbers into one offering for their clients. It will also presumably make it easier to make the case for public media sponsorship with agency buyers. Remember that large markets tend to have stronger Average Quarter Hour (AQH) ratings to begin with, and so it will be easier for them to sell their broadcast in line with a good CPM. In addition, larger stations tend to have solid digital ad operations already in place, as they have the scale and digital traffic needed to successfully sell on CPM.
For middle to smaller markets, especially those stations with smaller AQH ratings, the shift has the potential to be more disruptive. Consider that many public media stations don’t have the budget to subscribe to Nielsen data, and so they may not even know what their AQH rating is to calculate a comparable CPM rate. Additionally, many of these markets charge high rates, and this shift could make their current comparable CPM too high for agencies, which means that they would have to adjust to leaving money on the table that they could have gotten otherwise using a traditional rate card. Along the same lines, smaller markets tend to sell digital based on share of voice versus CPM, and this drives up the comparable CPM when converting for the purpose of responding to agency RFPs; thus, a station may ultimately also have to charge less for digital if working with an agency. Moving to selling CPM should be carefully managed, as described in this cautionary point of view.
Now’s the time to ensure we have our ducks in a row to be fully prepared for this change to both leverage the opportunities it brings, and/or successfully navigate the disruption, depending on where you sit within the public media landscape. Consider the following:
New to Greater Public? Create an account.