Broadcaster Monetization Coming to ATSC 3.0, TV2025 Told

With Nielsen’s accreditation pulled by the Media Ratings Council and rising dissatisfaction with the company’s measurement of streaming content, broadcasters are looking for alternative options, said Frank Friedman, E.W. Scripps vice president-consumer engagement, local media. “We’re at an inflection point in measurement,” he said: “A ton of people want to step into this space.” Nielsen Tuesday announced an effort to measure broadband-only homes. “I don’t know if they can turn that ship around in time to make it worth our while,” said Graham Media CEO Emily Barr. Nielsen didn't comment.

Several are skeptical Nielsen can measure broadband-only homes by January as promised, and Dentsu Managing Director-Local Video and Audio Investment Jennifer Hungerbuhler said if it happens it wouldn’t provide enough data to be useful. It is “hard to have faith” in Nielsen, said Brad Thompson, UM Worldwide senior vice president-integrated investment.

Nielsen’s shift to measuring viewer impressions is a positive, panelists agreed. Nielsen doing so could encourage advertisers also to switch to impressions as a favored metric, said Hungerbuhler.

A crowd of new players “champing at the bit” to provide viewer measurement could promote needed innovation, said Hungerbuhler. She said new solutions must be transparent, able to capture audience behavior, and verifiable. One of the principal issues stations have with Nielsen is lack of transparency, said Friedman. The industry is likely to start with a lot of solutions and then “come back to a common point,” said Thompson. The measurement industry needs a more viable business model, said Hungerbuhler. “We don’t have great transparency” into shifts of consumer viewing habits during this pandemic, she said.

Cavanaugh envisions a technical solution that would allow broadcasters to directly receive and share verifiable viewer metrics and could eliminate the need for an outside company. That would take an extremely long time to develop, said all the broadcast and ad industry panelists. “You’re talking about getting consensus across a very wide spectrum of people in this business,” said Thompson.

More ability to measure audiences is one of the most attractive features of broadcasters of shifting to 3.0, said Shawn Makhijani, NBCUniversal senior vice president-business development and strategy. Being able to digitally insert interactive, targeted ads is the biggest monetization opportunity NBCU sees in the new standard, he said, calling it a “game changer.”

Barr said revenue-increasing aspects of 3.0 are likely still “a few years away.” Scripps is looking toward providing “a bubble of data” to fleets of connected cars, said Vice President-Strategy and Business Development Kerry Oslund. It owns stations along Interstate 95 in Florida, and six broadcast transmitters can blanket the whole state with coverage, he said. To do the same would take hundreds of cellular towers, Oslund said.

Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle said 3.0 is riding a trend toward connected TVs. Viewers shifted toward consuming streaming content on their home sets rather than peripheral devices during the pandemic, she said. More than 3 million 3.0-compliant TV sets have been sold, she said. Schelle said there will be 45 million 3.0-compatible sets in U.S. households by 2024.

Pearl developed a web browser to allow connected devices to access internet content over 3.0 and is working with MVPDs to ensure consistency between an over-the-air 3.0 feed and watching 3.0 via cable, Schelle said. There should also be consistency between 3.0 apps and MVPD platforms like Comcast’s X1, she said. Makhijani said it’s not clear how much of 3.0’s capabilities will come through when retransmitted by MVPDs.