Nexstar to Ditch TV Ratings
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The nation’s largest TV group says that it will move away from ratings as the basis for advertising deals and will move to impressions.
Nexstar is following the lead of a number of other station groups that have decided that impressions give a clearer picture of who sees the advertising the station puts on its air.
This means you are not only counting the viewers that sit down in front of a traditional TV set, but also those viewers that are watching on a phone or other streaming device.
This is the future and we agree with Nexstar and others that are moving in this direction.
“We wanted to sell all platforms, indiscrimiately of where our viewers are found, whether they are on their tablet, on their desktop, on their television, on their mobile device or whatever may be to come,”Nexstar President Tim Busch told Variety in an interview. He added: “Advertisers want to reach as many people as possible through as many resources as we have available, and the buying process needs to get easier.”
The feeling among executives is that at a time when audiences are getting video across many different kinds of screens, using ratings in one instance and other measures in another is crimping talks with sponsors. Web-based video is often sold based on audience impressions, rather than the ratings that have long dominated talk about how much commercial time in a TV show is worth.
