ComScore to Roll Out New Cross-Platform Measurement in Time for TV Upfronts

Moves to Take on Nielsen in National Ratings on TV and Connected Devices

ComScore plans to introduce a new cross-platform TV measurement product designed to take on Nielsen’s dominant position in TV ratings.

The company, which recently completed its merger with Rentrak, announced its plans during an earning call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. CEO Serge Matta said ComScore deliver cross-platform measurement for review by April, which will disclose information about viewing on TV sets and connected devices on a monthly basis. The company will release a syndicated cross-media service revealing daily data across the industry in time for the fall TV season, he said.

The syndicated measurement service “will have person-level reporting across linear TV, time-shifted TV, [video-on-demand], over-the-top and digital video with advanced demographics and a broad range of measures for national and local markets,” Mr. Matta said.

“Our new model combines massive scale and smarter methodology to deliver better information and more precise results,” Mr. Matta said. “Now better information and more precise results is what the market is hungry for. Better information means the ability to use advanced demographics to plan and execute media buys. The ability to link detailed consumer demographics that go far beyond age and gender with the exact TV shows, web site or mobile experiences that the target consumer is watching.”

“Better information means new currencies that allow media companies to properly value their complete cross screen audience,” he continued. “Better information also means that the media companies no longer sell themselves short, because of lack of measurement on all of the screens their audiences use.”

The merger of ComScore and Rentrak could pose the first real threat to Nielsen, which has dominated TV measurement for decades. Nielsen has been criticized for not keeping up with the changes in TV viewing behavior and for not accounting for viewing taking place on varying devices and platforms. The company has been working to better measure these viewers with the roll-out of its own Total Audience Measurement product, which is now in testing.

… read on at adage.com

Originally posted by at Advertising Age
17th

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