After several days of discussion focusing primarily on the impact of over-the-top services and the implications of allowing consumers greater flexibility in selecting channels, measurement was briefly in the spotlight at the CRTC’s “Let’s Talk TV” hearings this week.
Companies including Numeris (formerly BBM Canada), FourthWall Media and Rentrak all appeared before the Commission this week to advocate for greater use of digital set-top box (STB) data.
In their submissions, the companies suggested that its use would provide additional information on Canadian viewing audiences that could be used to enhance the broadcast system for several constituencies.
“There is no question that many advertisers and broadcasters believe introducing STB data would represent a significant increase in the quality of the television audience data,” Numeris president and CEO Jim MacLeod told the CRTC, noting that data of this nature is gathered around the world each day but seldom used as currency.
MacLeod’s remarks were reiterated during Tuesday’s session, when David Kines, president and co-founder of the specialty service Hollywood Suite, told the Commission that broadcasters are living in the “stone age” of determining how and when people watch their content.
Netflix famously used its extensive customer data to help create hit original programming such as House of Cards. The over-the-top (OTT) service, which will make its highly anticipated appearance at the “Let’s Talk TV” hearings on Friday, discovered that many of its subscribers streamed films from the show’s director, David Fincher, and that films featuring Kevin Spacey also garnered strong audiences.
Combined with strong consumer appetite for the British version of House of Cards, Netflix correctly assumed that a U.S. version of the show would be an audience favourite.
During his presentation, MacLeod told CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais that the regulator had been a catalyst in getting his 70-year-old measurement company to contemplate the implications of STB data.
Numeris proposed a partnership with Kantar, a research firm that currently operates five commercial STB panels around the world, pulling data from Britain’s BSkyB and other services including Comcast in the U.S. The company also has what MacLeod described as a “semi-commercial” system in South Africa, the only jurisdiction where STB data is used – albeit on a limited basis – as currency.
MacLeod said that Kantar’s technology would enable Numeris to gather data to create a world-first commercial STB-based data collection system. The proposed venture has a working title of Digital Collection Canada (DCC), with MacLeod speculating it would take anywhere from 6-12 months to build a relationship with BDUs and an additional year or more to construct a working system capable of producing reliable data on a large scale.
“Numeris knows from previous launches of leading edge technology, namely our picture matching system in the 90s, the wireless PPM system in 2004 and…non-linear measurement in 2013, that new technology always takes longer than we expect going in,” MacLeod told the Commission. “This STB plan is ground-breaking work, and there are many unknowns.”
Bill Feininger, president of Fourthwall Media – a research “wholesaler” that collects STB data from 10 million U.S. households for more than 24 clients comprised of BDUs and various research/measurement companies – also endorsed the use of STB data.
Bill Livek, vice-chairman and CEO of Rentrak, a global audience measurement service that operates in 36 countries including Canada and the U.S., said the use of STB data would help the broadcast industry more effectively compete with the “new and unregulated” Internet TV providers (that would be Netflix) and enable broadcasters to more effectively monetize Canadian content.
Rentrak currently captures STB data from more than 29 million households in the U.S., including all 210 local markets and 350 local station clients. Livek said that a partnership with Canadian BDUs would provide “mutually beneficial services” for the two parties.
Rentrack uses a Census-based approach to measurement that Livek said allows it to capture data for smaller markets and niche TV shows that still have high value for advertisers.
Livek said that Rentrak has been slow to enter the Canadian market because the not-for-profit nature of our measurement industry doesn’t align with its need to meet certain profit thresholds. However, he added that the potential exists for a hybrid model in which it would work with BDUs in a “lower margin, but commercially viable way.”
In its working document for “Lets Talk TV,” the CRTC proposed the broadcast industry create a working group that would work co-operatively to establish a set-top box (STB) based audience measurement system.
However, Numeris’ MacLeod suggested a working group could potentially hinder the development of such a system. “It might get done faster in the absence of a working group,” he said. “I think the industry, given a few months, will figure out exactly what we need to do, and it can probably be done among the players.”
