Welcome to the blog of Dr. Lisa Burns' Media Studies senior capstone class (3:30 pm section) at Quinnipiac University. If you're looking for the latest on media industry trends and insightful media analysis, you've come to the right place!
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Audience Metrics & Advertising Blog 2, Question 2 (Feb. 6th)
Given the changes in how audiences consume media, do ratings still
matter? Why or why not? And are there alternative ways to track media
consumption? Limit: 12 responses
Given the way we consume media these days, I think ratings are still important but not in the traditional way they were before.
When television first started, the only way to truly measure the success of a television show was by views. That is how it has always been until recent years. Sure, live TV views are still important but now, there is a lot more that goes into what determines a shows success. I believe that live views don't mean that much anymore seeing as how over 61% of adults have said they watch their favorite shows through a streaming service (FactTank). I'm not surprised by that number considering the amount of OTT services that are out there. Additionally, anyone I've spoken to says they're too busy to watch live tv and it's simply easier to watch what they missed the next day online. We are a generation of convenience and OTT services provide the convenience we are constantly looking for.
Since the way we consume TV is changing, the way we track viewership also needs to change. Since 1951 the audience for TV shows have been declining rapidly with viewership for an individual television show dropping over half its original audience as of 2015 (Com Score). However as more networks have serviced, the audiences have spread out making the numbers look smaller when really everyone has just dispersed across the wide array of networks we now have.
It is important to note that people are still consuming television media, just very differently than how we are used to. Across all age ranges, it was reported that people consume media digitally rather than on live TV (Com Score). With all of this information, it is important that networks take into consideration the viewership they receive on OTT services in the days after an episode airs live.
Additionally, people have been reported saying no commercials is better. I'm not one to argue that but it does impact where and how a viewers consumes their favorite shows. Take Hulu and Netflix for example: Hulu has ads but 68% of viewers say they are more likely to watch ads on Hulu rather than on live TV (Hulu, TV Forward). What is the most interesting is that Netflix has no ads at all and yet people still gravitate toward Hulu. Maybe that is due to Hulu's much wider selection of shows to watch.
I think one of the biggest changes that needs to be made in counting ratings to determine a shows success is looking at OTT ratings for that specific show. Also, counting OTT ratings more equal to live TV ratings. For example, there are plenty of people who watch TGIT live but in just my small group of friends, we all watch the next day on the ABC app. I think live views don't necessarily hold the significance they once had now that OTT services have taken over the game. If the television scene continues in the OTT direction (which it definitely looks like it will considering Disney’s plan to have their own service is still in motion) than the views on those services need to be relied on more heavily than they are now.
Works Cited: Rainie, Lee. “About 6 in 10 Young Adults in U.S. Primarily Use Online Streaming to Watch TV.” Pew Research Center, 13 Sept. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/about-6-in-10-young-adults-in-u-s-primarily-use-online-streaming-to-watch-tv/.
Fulgoni, Dr. Gian. “Parellel Universe: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” CableFax TV Innovation Summit, 8 June 2017.
“Hulu Come TV With Us: Audience Profile.” Comscore, Nov. 2016.=
Over the past few years there has been a movement away from consuming media, mainly through television to SVOD services, such as Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon, and Hulu, in which users can consume media and stream content from their laptops, tablet, phone, and other devices. Most streaming services do not report ratings/do not have advertisements to at least put a monetized values to the time between/on different shows, movies, or other types on content found on the SVOD service. Therefore, that begs the question of do ratings on content still matter in today’s media consumption style of society? The answer, in simple, is still yes, but in a different way. Traditionally, ratings for television are measured by the Nielsen Company, in which they “measure more than 40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior—hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers. This measurement breadth allows clients to plan programming and advertising for their ideal audience. That great lipstick ad you saw during your favorite reality show—that was no accident—it was informed by big data” (“Nielsen Solutions – What We Measure”). However, it is becoming more and more difficult for companies, like Nielsen, to measure ratings because many SVOD services do not report personal ratings/popularity of their respective content. For example, “after a little over a year of repeatedly releasing unverifiable data about Netflix’s ratings, measurement company Symphony Advanced Media is shuttering its guessing game once and for all” (Desta). Therefore, with no true system, like Nielsen for television, to track ratings and overall popularity/views of content on these SVOD services it is hard to get a true account of ratings of the new and most popular way to consume content nowadays, and therefore it is hard to determine a monetized values of advertising opportunities, however, that simply is not the reason ratings matter anymore. First, ratings still matter for SVOD services, more so, for their own person usage. “Streaming media is a booming business, sometimes at the expense of more traditional entertainment. Subscription video-on-demand, popularized by Netflix, was an $8.21 billion industry last year and will grow to $14.03 billion by 2021, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers” (Bond). Therefore, with such a high stake of money on the line for these SVOD services, they need to be invested in how popular and how well their shows are doing and if they are worth the money they are spending on them. For example, if, hypothetically, Stranger Things becomes unpopular for the subscribers Netflix will more likely than not, invest less money into production costs and future ventures with the show. So in this case, the ratings matter more so for the streaming service, than the public and advertising companies. Secondly, television still has a strong hold and presence within the American lexicon of media/content consumption in today’s society. Despite, ratings value changing, “This is not the same thing as saying, “Ratings don’t matter anymore.” We’re not in a post-ratings world — at least not yet. As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Therefore, in combination with both the presence that television still has in America and the new way with which SVOD services are using their own ratings/popularity value of shows, ratings still matter, but the purpose is shifting in today’s society.
Adalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix- amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130.
Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives Up.” HWD, Vanity Fair, 25 May 2017, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix- ratings-symphony.
“Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
There is no denying that the media industry is in the middle of a shift in terms of how people consume television. The idea of a family gathering around a television to watch live shows is hard to imagine in today’s culture. In fact, by 2021, 40.1 million people will cut ties with cable and satellite TV (The Hollywood Reporter, Bond). Streaming shows and movies is a much more convenient and popular way to consume media.
With all of these changes amongst us, it is important to ask ourselves if ratings are still important, or if they are irrelevant to streaming services, producers and viewers. Ratings, in my opinion, remain important. I think it is only fair to the customers and those involved in producing the content to know how many people are watching. However, I do not think ratings are a crucial part of television. Everybody can live without knowing the number and demographics of people watching a particular show, but it should be public knowledge.
It is fair to argue that because the way we watch television has changed, so should the way we collect data. In an article about how ratings are determined, we see just how complicated calculating this data is. It reads, “Nielson calculates ratings in two ways- ‘diaries’ and ‘people meters.’ Most are now people meters, which automatically calculate what and when certain households watch” (Krakauer). Because all households aren’t gathering around a television, it seems unrealistic to continue collecting ratings this way.
One streaming service in particular does not feel the need to release numbers on their content, and this is frustrating a lot of people in the industry. Netflix does not release much information in terms of ratings and I can see why this is unsettling to everyone involved. Ratings are important, and the creators, producers and actors/actresses care about whom their show is relating to, who is watching and which demographic they belong to. An article titled “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix’s Hidden Ratings” gives some justification to Netflix’s reasoning. It reads, “Netflix’s public silence on numbers has always had a certain logic to it. Ratings are primarily a tool for selling advertising time, or convincing cable operators to pay networks more in subscription fees. Netflix, which draws almost all of its income from that monthly fee it quietly deducts from your checking account each month, doesn’t have to worry about either. As one senior broadcast network executive reasons, ‘It is not at all in their interest to release significant ratings information. So why should they?’” (Vulture, Adalian).
Even though how we watch television is much different than in the past, some of the traditional values should remain, and one of those is ratings. If, for any reason, ratings should still be considered important, it is because it is only fair for all of those involved in creating the content to have access to such information. Streaming services may only care about releasing how many subscribers they have, but the public may be concerned with who is watching what.
Krakauer, Steve. “You Likely Have No Idea How TV Ratings Work - A Lot More People Are Watching Than You Think.” Medium, Autonomous Magazine, 5 Aug. 2015, medium.com/autonomous/you-likely-have-no-idea-how-tv-ratings-work-a-lot-more-people-are-watching-than-you-think-152e51657a5.
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130.
Adalian Follow @TVMoJoe, Josef. “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix's Hidden Ratings.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
When a media aficionado thinks of ratings, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Nielson. I chose this question to respond to because of an article that caught my eye - “We Were a Nielsen Family — Here’s What It Was Like.” In the article, the man talks about how him and his wife are big into television. He works in the industry and she builds her daily schedule around what’s on television. He talked about how his wife took it seriously and how he played around with it, but now as a television producer, he’s hoping other Nielsen households don’t do the same. When I was younger, my family was a Nielsen family. We had a box installed on our television with buttons, one for my dad, my mom, myself and my brother. To help us, my mom put stickers on our buttons so we could easily remember which button we should push when we were watching TV. I remember the flashing lights that the author talks about in his article, but I don’t recall anyone coming to our house. I recall my dad, who was very much into riding dirt bikes and watching the races, making us have it on TV when it was airing so it would get more views and hopefully be aired more often. At first, my brother, who is two years younger than me, and I were very interested and excited about being able to push a button that was reserved for just us. But like most things at our age, the novelty faded and it turned into a chore. Years later, we were asked to do it again but this time they sent us a log. We were again assigned user numbers and instructed to write down what we tuned into. The interesting part about this was it told us to include Netflix. Like when we were younger, we were good about it for a little bit but it turned into a chore. At the end, the book was filled with my mom’s HGTV shows, my brother’s South Park and my binge-watching of Gossip Girl. It made me wonder what ratings had turned into. Were they really relying on this book that we only sometimes filled out for ratings? In Neilsen’s How We Measure, it talks about how they sent out two million of the “paper diaries” we filled out. I’d be interested to see what the electronic sets look like now and how they’ve changed, which based on the immense change of technology since then, I can only imagine how they work now. Ratings definitely still matter no matter the service, but Netflix’s ratings aren’t as relevant as they are for companies like NBC. According to an article posted on The Hollywood Reported called “NBC vs. Netflix: Why a Ratings 'Reveal' Matters”, it talks about how an NBC research analyst claimed that the lowest-rated NBC shows are where Netflix’s hit shows are, but it’s only speculatory. Netflix doesn’t release its viewership numbers due to its lack of a need for advertisers. It started a tiff between NBC and Netflix, but brought up the debate of viewership, data and who will ultimately win. Netflix doesn’t have to rely on advertisers but rather subscribers, while NBC has to rely on advertisers but doesn’t have to take subscribers into consideration. While Netflix’s viewership will remain a mystery, in the words of the creator of Orange Is the New Black, “It’s a waste of time to speculate.”
Works Cited Mar, Melvin. "We Were a Nielsen Family — Here’s What It Was Like." Vulture 1 Dec. 2015. Web. "Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure." Nielsen.com. Accessed 23 Jan. 2016. Web. Jarvey, Natalie. “NBC vs. Netflix: Why a Ratings 'Reveal' Matters.” The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Jan. 2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbc-netflix-why-a-ratings-857319.
We live in a world that people judge and like to pinpoint an opinion of something they’ve watched or seen. Given that people are provided more and more opportunities to share their opinions on the media it has made it easier for streaming companies to still have ratings. It is no longer the way it was in the past when the only way to see ratings were based on how many people were tuning in to a cable television program. Now, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are able to get their ratings based off of popularity, interest and purchases. I believe it is now more difficult to view ratings on cable television than it is on a streaming service because more and more people have shifted to streaming services more than cable just because it is more convenient to watch a program on their own time. “People aren’t consuming less media, just differently,” which could be a reason why some may say ratings don’t matter especially on cable television. Which I agree with. Overall, I believe that ratings very much matter for streaming services but not so much for cable television. 19.1 billion people ages 18-34 watch live television and 30.0 billion use digital media (streaming services) for their television sources. (Fulgoni) Ratings matter, they always will. Ratings provide companies with ways of knowing who’s interested in what, who will watch what, who wants to see what and what people will purchase. If ratings didn’t exist there would be no way that a streaming service would be as successful as they are today. Though ratings DO matter it doesn’t always mean that if a show has a lower rating than it did in the past than it should be “off air.” As long as advertisements are able to be produced and shown with commercial breaks ratings will matter because it brings so much business to the network. “As long as revenue from advertisers remains a part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Many shows are able to make an enormous profit just from advertisements. Though streamers do not share their ratings there have been other ways to determine the series that have the biggest audiences (Bond). Although streaming services don’t display their ratings, Parrot Analytics developed a “demand expressions” measurement based on streams, viewers, engagement and more. With this measurement we are able to see the 5 most popular shows on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. “There were 16.7 million cord-cutters by 2016, according to eMarketer, and there will be 40.1 million by 2021. There were 32.5 million cord-nevers (Americans who have never subscribed to pay television) in 2016, and that will rise to 41 million by 2021 (Bond).” So, given this information, ratings matter more for streaming services rather than cable television users.
Cites: Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017
Brinton, Monty. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture
Fulgoni, Gian. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices.” TV Innovation Summit , Cablefax, 8 June 2017
In the modern media landscape ratings seem to be deteriorating by the day, more and more people are transitioning to “unconventional” means of media consumption. The age breakdown for the type of media consumption is very indicative to the decline of television ratings. "Parallel Universes - Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices,” an article published by Gian Fulgoni, shows that a younger demographic (ages 18-34) tends to watch 19.1 billion hours of content on television as opposed to 30 billion hours split between mobile and desktop streaming. The other side of the spectrum, ages 55+, spent a total of 37 billion hours watching television and only 16.4 billion hours split between desktop and mobile streaming (Fulgoni). It’s quite apparent that the consumption of media has changed over generations so the measurement should change as well.
The evolution and accessibility of OTT services play a huge role in the shift from live television viewership to on demand viewership. The reason I think there has been such a large skew in the recording of ratings is because with OTT services, their money is made by subscription. With cable companies there was a monthly fee for the service but the content showed wasn’t always theirs. An organized rating system was needed to keep track of the numbers of views. A service like Netflix, or Hulu, does benefit from people watching their original shows, but once you subscribe to them their money is being made. They provide the service and the content. According to Mike Rich the accessibility to these services has increase their popularity across households in the United States. (Rich)
The most important issue with ratings is advertising. Companies will pay a lot of money to advertise on a popular show. But, if were moving away from live TV how will these advertisements adapt? I think there will be a time where ratings will be completely obsolete. Josef Adalian, in his article, “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?,” Says that “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter. Broadcasters aren’t Netflix or HBO. They still want to live up to their name and find shows with a broad appeal, like This Is Us or The Big Bang Theory” (Adalian). With all this taken into account, I feel that the process of gathering ratings has become somewhat obsolete. There are many arguments to be made for ratings to be recorded. Award ceremonies need the ratings for popularity and to give actors and actresses the proper recognition. But going further than that I don’t see them as a detrimental part of the new method of media consumption. Another issue I see is that with streaming anyone can watch it any where at anytime. For live TV the ratings need to be gather that day, between the specific time slot. With OTT services leaving shows on their platforms for years gathering the ratings could be scattered.
Fulgoni, Gian. "Parallel Universes - Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices." commScore. 8 June 2017. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018. Web.
Rich, Mike and Andrew Lipsman. "State of OTT." commScore. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018. Web.
Brinton, Monty. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
For as long as we have watched television, the broadcasting networks that we have grown accustomed to relied upon ratings to see if their show was a hit or not. This was before the use of OTT (Over-The-Top) streaming services were introduced and became the new thing to use like it is in today's digital landscape. Today, television has evolved from the simple use of watching and waiting for your show to come back on to the use of Streaming Video On Demand services. With the use of SVOD, consumers have more access to the content that they wanted to watch, whether it was old or new. Therefore, given the changes in how audiences consume media, ratings still matter, but there are more rules and/or criteria that are applied to the content that audiences are viewing. In the past, Nielsen was the only the only company that was measuring TV ratings and became notable for that. Nielsen has been conducting this type of research for the benefit of broadcasting networks since the 1950s. Since then, they have measured over “40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior- hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers.” (Nielsen.Com) Nielsen had a working system to measure how audiences were consuming things and that helped broadcasting networks score ad-revenue to maintain their media conglomerates. It is obvious to know, television watching has since changed since the 1950’s. Nielsen now measure how audiences consume content from social media conversation, “analyzing the cell phone bills of 65,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S” (Nielsen.com), digital ad ratings, and etc. The fact that Nielsen is still finding ways to adapt to digital media landscape to research what audiences are watching and what they’re not watching, shows that ratings still have an importance on whether or not if these media companies continue to produce the content they thought would be a great investment. The added criteria of measuring social media conversation on Twitter was ingenious way to adapt to the times because people are very vocal on the website/ app. It only made sense to do so. When people aren’t watching television, what are they talking about? However, there is a threat to Nielsen and other audience tracking companies and how they measure audiences consuming content especially with the use of OTT streaming services. This includes the big three, Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix. According to the Hollywood Reporter, these services do not share ratings. So it is up to assumption and theory to figure out what is their most popular shows. It is clear, that it is hard to know what is drawing people to subscribe to these services, but there has been failed attempts. A “company previously claimed that its service VideoPulse could collect and quantify ratings data about the irritatingly oblique streaming platform, a claim that Netflix consistently shot down. Now, VideoPulse is no more.” (Desta) The company had tried to use audio content recognition technology to conducts its research, but its information was never verified. There is a strong hold on what these OTT service have and what they don’t want their broadcasting competitors to know. Even though there is the secrecy of how audiences consume OTT streaming services, ratings still play a role no matter what. “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Yes, OTT services are the newest and hottest thing, but companies still need an avenue to sell their products, which companies like Netflix do not have. Therefore, Ad-sales still run how we watch and what shows we watch as well.
Works Cited “Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html. Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix- amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130. Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives Up.” HWD, Vanity Fair, 25 May 2017, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix- ratings-symphony. Adalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Due to the way that audiences consume media, ratings have become conditional. The size of the audience for broadcast shows has been shifting since the start as more options came into play. In an inforgraphic published by Comscore called “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices,” it becomes very evident that as the number of networks and shows increased, the less people were watching one particular program. “I Love Lucy” was able to have a huge audience because there was not much else on now, I have to pick to watch “Law and Order,” “The Voice,” or “American Ninja Warrior” because they are all on at the same time. My eyes can only watch one on one television.
When networks are taking ratings into account, they also have to consider how much money they are making from a show. This past year, “Timeless” (rating: 2.4) had a hard time getting renewed for a second season on NBC. In fact, it was canceled until it’s active, loyal fanbase made a big deal out of it on social media. On the other hand, “Taken” (rating: 1.4) was renewed for a new season without any issues. The reason that “Taken,” a show with a lower rating, was immediately allowed to continue is because it costs less money to make so, it makes more money for NBC. “Timeless” costs more but, it has better ratings (Adalian). If networks are more concerned with making money than they are with ratings, then ratings have almost become null. They only thing that ratings have really determined for networks is how much they can charge for advertisements. Unless the show is a hit like “This is Us,” there is not a huge difference in how much an advertisement will cost.
Where will ratings really matter then? SVOD platforms. Hulu is the only streaming platform that currently runs advertisements at a price between $25 and $30 cost per thousand impressions. Their advertisements are cheaper than NBC’s ($35 or more CPM) and an advertisement would run on a demographic across many shows (Learmonth). Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu have to consider how many people are watching their show so that they can continue to make money. If these platforms are not giving their subscribers the content that they want to see, then they will stop subscribing. People do not just turn on Netflix as background noise the same way they do with NBC. Subscribers use these services to watch the content that they want and if that content is not on the platform then they will stop subscribing. We as the public might not currently know what the ratings are for these services but, the services themselves keep track. They use the information to decide what gets to stay on their platform.
Adalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14 May 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Fulgoni, Gian. Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices. ComScore, 8 June 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2432441-dt-content-rid-18446486_1/courses/MSS49502_18SP/Parallel%2BUniverses%2BMeasuring%2BEyeballs%2BAcross%2BPlatforms%2C%2BScreens%2Band%2BDevices%281%29.pdf.
Learmonth, Michael. “Hulu Ads A Bargain Compared To NBC.Com.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 26 June 2008, www.businessinsider.com/2008/6/hulu-ad-bargain.
The consumption of media happens every single day and the success of the media that we are consuming is ultimately left up to the consumers to determine. For this blog post, I will focus heavily on a television show as an example because it might be easier to understand in the context of my examples.
In the very beginning when television became increasingly popular, ratings were extremely important and greatly contributed to the success of the show. Generating “buzz” is something that was incredibly beneficial then and continues to be beneficial from a network standpoint. The way we collect this data now has altered from the beginning, though. According to an article written by an individual who referred to himself and his household as a Nielsen household, “... Paul from Nielsen came by our apartment. Paul set up every television with a black box, accompanied by a chaotic clutter of electronics behind the set. All this equipment connected to our internet and was used to feed our viewing data to servers nightly.” (Mar.) While there are many more ways now, considering new technologies, to capture viewer information, a lot of ratings typically happen through the use of social media. While viewing a show, the use of “live-tweeting” has become increasingly popular and a great way to gage whether or not the audience of your content is pleased with what is being presented.
OTT services otherwise known as streaming services are on the rise and have been for a few years now. According to ComScore,“51 million homes used OTT services in April.” (Lipsman.) That is just one month, and respectively a lot of viewers taking liking to different kinds of content. When we talk about OTT services like Netflix and Hulu programs, including original content, most of that is heavily dependent on ratings considering there is not much if any advertising for the show anywhere off of social media platforms (again, why social media is an efficient component to all of this) In terms of the rating systems that are incorporated with each platform, Netflix has shifted from a 5-star rating system to a thumbs up, thumbs down which is considered to be “fundamentally flawed.” In an article written by businessinsider, this is explained with the statement; “with so much confusion around how the star-rating system worked, Netflix argued people were less motivated to rate titles.” (Smith.) This argues how important ratings still are. While to consumers, some may argue that they never look at reviews when deciding on which content to watch because they are sure to find something they like, they are able to find shows that they like because the rating system exists. To networks, it is important that “most-liked” content is displayed first, and what is the way that we can find out what content is most-liked? You got it, ratings, reviews and viewership.
All in all, while ratings and reviews may mean nothing to the lives of consumers who choose to view content without regard to who else is pleased with it, in order for networks and ott services to continue to produce “likeable” content that is wanted by audiences, it is important that this information continues to be collected.
Lipsman, Andrew, and Mike Rich. “State of OTT.” ComScore, www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/State-of-OTT.
Mar, Melvin. “We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html.
Smith, Dave. “Why Netflix's 'thumbs up, thumbs down' ratings system is fundamentally flawed.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 24 Sept. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/netflix-thumbs-rating-system-flawed-2017-9.
The evolution and accessibility of OTT services play a huge role in the shift from live television viewership to on demand viewership. Before OTT (Over-The-Top) streaming service was available, television networks used the Nielsen system to determine which shows were successful and which weren’t. However, with OTT streaming services becoming bigger and more desired, the Nielsen system finds itself with ratings at alarming lows. Some people make the argument that a rating system/the Nielsen rating system is no longer relevant, but I would say that’s far from true. The Nielsen system is a system that randomly selects and monitors channel and time selections different families choose over a certain time span. An article written on Nielsen.com had this to say about what Nielsen looks for, “Understanding what consumers are watching—and what they’re watching on—is more important than ever. Today, viewing video is a personal and mobile experience—anytime and anywhere. This media fragmentation is both a challenge and an opportunity. Our capabilities provide relevant metrics that are necessary to inform successful marketing and programming and drive continued growth. We measure more than 40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior—hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers”. However, if Nielsen system wants to stay relevant, they must adapt and find a new ways to measure a viewing audience. “Cord cutters” don’t appear on Nielsen’s rating system. Mike Rich wrote in his article, “What Behavviroal Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habbits of Cord-Cutters, “Cord-cutters are more likely to use a streaming box or stick to power their OTT viewing habits. These devices are present in 71 percent of cord cutting homes vs. 59 percent of all OTT viewing Wi-Fi homes. Interestingly, cord-cutters are slightly less likely to use game consoles (43 percent penetration) and connected TVs (42 percent penetration) than the average Wi-Fi home“. This shows Nielsen needs to find new ways to regulate their audience. One way Nielsen can still collect ratings is to turn their attention to social media. Start collecting live tweets, tweets, Facebook posts, or live video stories that talk about content on certain shows and begin to analyze that data. I believe they would notice a trend that the shows with the most tweets most likely have the most views/highest ratings. Another way to collect data is to partner up with these OTT services to help them figure out which shows are most successful. Nielsen has already proven it can work with a partner and help them determine which shows are most successful and which should be canceled and even though OTT services can monitor which shows are doing well, they most likely aren’t able to specify who exactly their audience is. A rating system can greatly help OTT services weave out which content was a mistake to add to their service and which content the people want more of. One of the biggest obstacles the Nielsen Company will face is how they manage to deal with big time networks that aren’t on an OTT services. Big time networks see their ratings plummeting and without their product being aired on an OTT service, they could expect to see a slippery slope. I believe there will always be a rating system, however I don’t believe they will be gathering their data from live cable television much longer.
“TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
“What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters.” ComScore, Inc., www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
Media as we know it is changing, social media streaming live television, OTT services like HULU and HBOGO and Netflix making consumers cut the cable cord for good. Appointment television is becoming a thing of the past. And because of that the rating system is as well. Rating systems are also on the ropes. With so many streaming services and consumers cutting cords, the ratings are down. But media is still being consumed. Ratings still matter, just because they are lagging behind the always changing fast pace world of modern day media, there still needs to be a way to track the success or failure of a television show or event. Without Ratings there would be no basis of what to charge advertisers for a commercial. The problem we are having is keeping up with the cord cutters. Back when there was 5 networks ratings meant a whole lot. The NBA finals were on tape delay because of poor ratings until Larry Bird and Magic Johnson saved the NBA. Now people like myself watch the MLB World Series on a streaming service, all seven games. The challenge becomes keeping up with the streamers, and finding out what they are watching. The partnership of Sling TV and Comscore will help provide a baseline for advertisers but still there is quite a long way to go for the development of TV ratings. To show the importance of ratings to advertisers the comscore Vice president had this to say, "Addressable advertising for television content is projected to grow 66 percent this year to $1.3 billion in media spend**," said Cathy Hetzel, comScore executive vice president.” (comScore) With the industry growing so much the need for improvement on the analytic side of media is a necessity. People need to know who is watching what, when you are watching, and for how long. These are all crucial details for an advertiser when planning a marketing campaign. Smart TV’s and game consoles are all ways that folks can avoid purchasing a cable box and still see all of the content they wish to see while paying the bare minimum for cable service. The market for these streaming sercices like game consoles and smart tv’s are all over the place. So many companies and brands provide you with an opportunity to stream live tv and use a service right at your fingertips like Apple, Amazon, Visio, Microsoft, Sony. All of these brands make a product that can get you to what you are trying to watch without cable connection. These factors are putting the ratings in a limbo. On one hand you can see who is watching what on cable television. But at the same time the amount of people skinny bundling and cord cutting is increasing at an alarming rate. Ratings are important to many people and will always be important. We need TV ratings as a media community to make dollars not cents. Charge what is fair for advertising time on your network or in your service. The networks need it so they can air what is deserving of time slots and what can wait for a later date. Much like the NBA finals in the 70’s. Nobody watched so it was on delay. People are still watching the super bowl, it just may not be on cable television. Much like when more Networks sprouted and the top shows were not getting the ratings like when there were four networks. People are still watching, we just need to find out at what volume and how they are viewing the content. Adam Lella of comScore pointed out that the new products give access to OTT services and making streaming so easy “…as more of these devices were sold with built-in internet-streaming, more consumers had the ability to stream OTT content if they wanted to.” This quote shows how accessible the content is to anyone that is buying a game device, a fire stick, or even a new television.
Works Cited comScore. “Sling TV Partners with ComScore to Offer First Ever Cross-Platform Addressable Advertising Measurement.” PR Newswire: News Distribution, Targeting and Monitoring, 4 Jan. 2018, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sling-tv-partners-with-comscore-to-offer-first-ever-cross-platform-addressable-advertising-measurement-300577409.html. Lella, Adam. “How Important Is the OTT Device Market If the 'Future of TV Is Apps'?” ComScore, Inc., 12 July 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/How-Important-is-the-OTT-Device-Market-if-the-Future
Given the way we consume media these days, I think ratings are still important but not in the traditional way they were before.
ReplyDeleteWhen television first started, the only way to truly measure the success of a television show was by views. That is how it has always been until recent years. Sure, live TV views are still important but now, there is a lot more that goes into what determines a shows success. I believe that live views don't mean that much anymore seeing as how over 61% of adults have said they watch their favorite shows through a streaming service (FactTank). I'm not surprised by that number considering the amount of OTT services that are out there. Additionally, anyone I've spoken to says they're too busy to watch live tv and it's simply easier to watch what they missed the next day online. We are a generation of convenience and OTT services provide the convenience we are constantly looking for.
Since the way we consume TV is changing, the way we track viewership also needs to change. Since 1951 the audience for TV shows have been declining rapidly with viewership for an individual television show dropping over half its original audience as of 2015 (Com Score). However as more networks have serviced, the audiences have spread out making the numbers look smaller when really everyone has just dispersed across the wide array of networks we now have.
It is important to note that people are still consuming television media, just very differently than how we are used to. Across all age ranges, it was reported that people consume media digitally rather than on live TV (Com Score). With all of this information, it is important that networks take into consideration the viewership they receive on OTT services in the days after an episode airs live.
Additionally, people have been reported saying no commercials is better. I'm not one to argue that but it does impact where and how a viewers consumes their favorite shows. Take Hulu and Netflix for example: Hulu has ads but 68% of viewers say they are more likely to watch ads on Hulu rather than on live TV (Hulu, TV Forward). What is the most interesting is that Netflix has no ads at all and yet people still gravitate toward Hulu. Maybe that is due to Hulu's much wider selection of shows to watch.
I think one of the biggest changes that needs to be made in counting ratings to determine a shows success is looking at OTT ratings for that specific show. Also, counting OTT ratings more equal to live TV ratings. For example, there are plenty of people who watch TGIT live but in just my small group of friends, we all watch the next day on the ABC app. I think live views don't necessarily hold the significance they once had now that OTT services have taken over the game. If the television scene continues in the OTT direction (which it definitely looks like it will considering Disney’s plan to have their own service is still in motion) than the views on those services need to be relied on more heavily than they are now.
Works Cited:
Rainie, Lee. “About 6 in 10 Young Adults in U.S. Primarily Use Online Streaming to Watch TV.” Pew Research Center, 13 Sept. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/about-6-in-10-young-adults-in-u-s-primarily-use-online-streaming-to-watch-tv/.
Fulgoni, Dr. Gian. “Parellel Universe: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices.” CableFax TV Innovation Summit, 8 June 2017.
“Hulu Come TV With Us: Audience Profile.” Comscore, Nov. 2016.=
Over the past few years there has been a movement away from consuming media, mainly through television to SVOD services, such as Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon, and Hulu, in which users can consume media and stream content from their laptops, tablet, phone, and other devices. Most streaming services do not report ratings/do not have advertisements to at least put a monetized values to the time between/on different shows, movies, or other types on content found on the SVOD service. Therefore, that begs the question of do ratings on content still matter in today’s media consumption style of society? The answer, in simple, is still yes, but in a different way. Traditionally, ratings for television are measured by the Nielsen Company, in which they “measure more than 40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior—hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers. This measurement breadth allows clients to plan programming and advertising for their ideal audience. That great lipstick ad you saw during your favorite reality show—that was no accident—it was informed by big data” (“Nielsen Solutions – What We Measure”).
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is becoming more and more difficult for companies, like Nielsen, to measure ratings because many SVOD services do not report personal ratings/popularity of their respective content. For example, “after a little over a year of repeatedly releasing unverifiable data about Netflix’s ratings, measurement company Symphony Advanced Media is shuttering its guessing game once and for all” (Desta). Therefore, with no true system, like Nielsen for television, to track ratings and overall popularity/views of content on these SVOD services it is hard to get a true account of ratings of the new and most popular way to consume content nowadays, and therefore it is hard to determine a monetized values of advertising opportunities, however, that simply is not the reason ratings matter anymore.
First, ratings still matter for SVOD services, more so, for their own person usage. “Streaming media is a booming business, sometimes at the expense of more traditional entertainment. Subscription video-on-demand, popularized by Netflix, was an $8.21 billion industry last year and will grow to $14.03 billion by 2021, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers” (Bond). Therefore, with such a high stake of money on the line for these SVOD services, they need to be invested in how popular and how well their shows are doing and if they are worth the money they are spending on them. For example, if, hypothetically, Stranger Things becomes unpopular for the subscribers Netflix will more likely than not, invest less money into production costs and future ventures with the show. So in this case, the ratings matter more so for the streaming service, than the public and advertising companies.
Secondly, television still has a strong hold and presence within the American lexicon of media/content consumption in today’s society. Despite, ratings value changing, “This is not the same thing as saying, “Ratings don’t matter anymore.” We’re not in a post-ratings world — at least not yet. As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Therefore, in combination with both the presence that television still has in America and the new way with which SVOD services are using their own ratings/popularity value of shows, ratings still matter, but the purpose is shifting in today’s society.
Works Cited (for above)
ReplyDeleteAdalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture,
www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood
Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-
amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130.
Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives
Up.” HWD, Vanity Fair, 25 May 2017, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-
ratings-symphony.
“Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen,
www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
There is no denying that the media industry is in the middle of a shift in terms of how people consume television. The idea of a family gathering around a television to watch live shows is hard to imagine in today’s culture. In fact, by 2021, 40.1 million people will cut ties with cable and satellite TV (The Hollywood Reporter, Bond). Streaming shows and movies is a much more convenient and popular way to consume media.
ReplyDeleteWith all of these changes amongst us, it is important to ask ourselves if ratings are still important, or if they are irrelevant to streaming services, producers and viewers. Ratings, in my opinion, remain important. I think it is only fair to the customers and those involved in producing the content to know how many people are watching. However, I do not think ratings are a crucial part of television. Everybody can live without knowing the number and demographics of people watching a particular show, but it should be public knowledge.
It is fair to argue that because the way we watch television has changed, so should the way we collect data. In an article about how ratings are determined, we see just how complicated calculating this data is. It reads, “Nielson calculates ratings in two ways- ‘diaries’ and ‘people meters.’ Most are now people meters, which automatically calculate what and when certain households watch” (Krakauer). Because all households aren’t gathering around a television, it seems unrealistic to continue collecting ratings this way.
One streaming service in particular does not feel the need to release numbers on their content, and this is frustrating a lot of people in the industry. Netflix does not release much information in terms of ratings and I can see why this is unsettling to everyone involved. Ratings are important, and the creators, producers and actors/actresses care about whom their show is relating to, who is watching and which demographic they belong to. An article titled “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix’s Hidden Ratings” gives some justification to Netflix’s reasoning. It reads, “Netflix’s public silence on numbers has always had a certain logic to it. Ratings are primarily a tool for selling advertising time, or convincing cable operators to pay networks more in subscription fees. Netflix, which draws almost all of its income from that monthly fee it quietly deducts from your checking account each month, doesn’t have to worry about either. As one senior broadcast network executive reasons, ‘It is not at all in their interest to release significant ratings information. So why should they?’” (Vulture, Adalian).
Even though how we watch television is much different than in the past, some of the traditional values should remain, and one of those is ratings. If, for any reason, ratings should still be considered important, it is because it is only fair for all of those involved in creating the content to have access to such information. Streaming services may only care about releasing how many subscribers they have, but the public may be concerned with who is watching what.
Krakauer, Steve. “You Likely Have No Idea How TV Ratings Work - A Lot More People Are Watching Than You Think.” Medium, Autonomous Magazine, 5 Aug. 2015, medium.com/autonomous/you-likely-have-no-idea-how-tv-ratings-work-a-lot-more-people-are-watching-than-you-think-152e51657a5.
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130.
Adalian Follow @TVMoJoe, Josef. “How Hollywood Gossips About Netflix's Hidden Ratings.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/netflix-ratings-how-hollywood-gossips.html.
When a media aficionado thinks of ratings, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Nielson. I chose this question to respond to because of an article that caught my eye - “We Were a Nielsen Family — Here’s What It Was Like.” In the article, the man talks about how him and his wife are big into television. He works in the industry and she builds her daily schedule around what’s on television. He talked about how his wife took it seriously and how he played around with it, but now as a television producer, he’s hoping other Nielsen households don’t do the same. When I was younger, my family was a Nielsen family. We had a box installed on our television with buttons, one for my dad, my mom, myself and my brother. To help us, my mom put stickers on our buttons so we could easily remember which button we should push when we were watching TV. I remember the flashing lights that the author talks about in his article, but I don’t recall anyone coming to our house. I recall my dad, who was very much into riding dirt bikes and watching the races, making us have it on TV when it was airing so it would get more views and hopefully be aired more often. At first, my brother, who is two years younger than me, and I were very interested and excited about being able to push a button that was reserved for just us. But like most things at our age, the novelty faded and it turned into a chore.
ReplyDeleteYears later, we were asked to do it again but this time they sent us a log. We were again assigned user numbers and instructed to write down what we tuned into. The interesting part about this was it told us to include Netflix. Like when we were younger, we were good about it for a little bit but it turned into a chore. At the end, the book was filled with my mom’s HGTV shows, my brother’s South Park and my binge-watching of Gossip Girl. It made me wonder what ratings had turned into. Were they really relying on this book that we only sometimes filled out for ratings? In Neilsen’s How We Measure, it talks about how they sent out two million of the “paper diaries” we filled out. I’d be interested to see what the electronic sets look like now and how they’ve changed, which based on the immense change of technology since then, I can only imagine how they work now.
Ratings definitely still matter no matter the service, but Netflix’s ratings aren’t as relevant as they are for companies like NBC. According to an article posted on The Hollywood Reported called “NBC vs. Netflix: Why a Ratings 'Reveal' Matters”, it talks about how an NBC research analyst claimed that the lowest-rated NBC shows are where Netflix’s hit shows are, but it’s only speculatory. Netflix doesn’t release its viewership numbers due to its lack of a need for advertisers. It started a tiff between NBC and Netflix, but brought up the debate of viewership, data and who will ultimately win. Netflix doesn’t have to rely on advertisers but rather subscribers, while NBC has to rely on advertisers but doesn’t have to take subscribers into consideration. While Netflix’s viewership will remain a mystery, in the words of the creator of Orange Is the New Black, “It’s a waste of time to speculate.”
Works Cited
Mar, Melvin. "We Were a Nielsen Family — Here’s What It Was Like." Vulture 1 Dec. 2015. Web.
"Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure." Nielsen.com. Accessed 23 Jan. 2016. Web.
Jarvey, Natalie. “NBC vs. Netflix: Why a Ratings 'Reveal' Matters.” The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Jan. 2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbc-netflix-why-a-ratings-857319.
We live in a world that people judge and like to pinpoint an opinion of something they’ve watched or seen. Given that people are provided more and more opportunities to share their opinions on the media it has made it easier for streaming companies to still have ratings. It is no longer the way it was in the past when the only way to see ratings were based on how many people were tuning in to a cable television program. Now, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are able to get their ratings based off of popularity, interest and purchases. I believe it is now more difficult to view ratings on cable television than it is on a streaming service because more and more people have shifted to streaming services more than cable just because it is more convenient to watch a program on their own time. “People aren’t consuming less media, just differently,” which could be a reason why some may say ratings don’t matter especially on cable television. Which I agree with. Overall, I believe that ratings very much matter for streaming services but not so much for cable television. 19.1 billion people ages 18-34 watch live television and 30.0 billion use digital media (streaming services) for their television sources. (Fulgoni)
ReplyDeleteRatings matter, they always will. Ratings provide companies with ways of knowing who’s interested in what, who will watch what, who wants to see what and what people will purchase. If ratings didn’t exist there would be no way that a streaming service would be as successful as they are today. Though ratings DO matter it doesn’t always mean that if a show has a lower rating than it did in the past than it should be “off air.” As long as advertisements are able to be produced and shown with commercial breaks ratings will matter because it brings so much business to the network. “As long as revenue from advertisers remains a part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Many shows are able to make an enormous profit just from advertisements.
Though streamers do not share their ratings there have been other ways to determine the series that have the biggest audiences (Bond). Although streaming services don’t display their ratings, Parrot Analytics developed a “demand expressions” measurement based on streams, viewers, engagement and more. With this measurement we are able to see the 5 most popular shows on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. “There were 16.7 million cord-cutters by 2016, according to eMarketer, and there will be 40.1 million by 2021. There were 32.5 million cord-nevers (Americans who have never subscribed to pay television) in 2016, and that will rise to 41 million by 2021 (Bond).” So, given this information, ratings matter more for streaming services rather than cable television users.
Cites:
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017
Brinton, Monty. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture
Fulgoni, Gian. “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices.” TV Innovation Summit , Cablefax, 8 June 2017
In the modern media landscape ratings seem to be deteriorating by the day, more and more people are transitioning to “unconventional” means of media consumption. The age breakdown for the type of media consumption is very indicative to the decline of television ratings. "Parallel Universes - Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices,” an article published by Gian Fulgoni, shows that a younger demographic (ages 18-34) tends to watch 19.1 billion hours of content on television as opposed to 30 billion hours split between mobile and desktop streaming. The other side of the spectrum, ages 55+, spent a total of 37 billion hours watching television and only 16.4 billion hours split between desktop and mobile streaming (Fulgoni). It’s quite apparent that the consumption of media has changed over generations so the measurement should change as well.
ReplyDeleteThe evolution and accessibility of OTT services play a huge role in the shift from live television viewership to on demand viewership. The reason I think there has been such a large skew in the recording of ratings is because with OTT services, their money is made by subscription. With cable companies there was a monthly fee for the service but the content showed wasn’t always theirs. An organized rating system was needed to keep track of the numbers of views. A service like Netflix, or Hulu, does benefit from people watching their original shows, but once you subscribe to them their money is being made. They provide the service and the content. According to Mike Rich the accessibility to these services has increase their popularity across households in the United States. (Rich)
The most important issue with ratings is advertising. Companies will pay a lot of money to advertise on a popular show. But, if were moving away from live TV how will these advertisements adapt? I think there will be a time where ratings will be completely obsolete. Josef Adalian, in his article, “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?,” Says that “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter. Broadcasters aren’t Netflix or HBO. They still want to live up to their name and find shows with a broad appeal, like This Is Us or The Big Bang Theory” (Adalian). With all this taken into account, I feel that the process of gathering ratings has become somewhat obsolete. There are many arguments to be made for ratings to be recorded. Award ceremonies need the ratings for popularity and to give actors and actresses the proper recognition. But going further than that I don’t see them as a detrimental part of the new method of media consumption. Another issue I see is that with streaming anyone can watch it any where at anytime. For live TV the ratings need to be gather that day, between the specific time slot. With OTT services leaving shows on their platforms for years gathering the ratings could be scattered.
Fulgoni, Gian. "Parallel Universes - Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens, and Devices." commScore. 8 June 2017. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018. Web.
Rich, Mike and Andrew Lipsman. "State of OTT." commScore. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018. Web.
Brinton, Monty. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
For as long as we have watched television, the broadcasting networks that we have grown accustomed to relied upon ratings to see if their show was a hit or not. This was before the use of OTT (Over-The-Top) streaming services were introduced and became the new thing to use like it is in today's digital landscape. Today, television has evolved from the simple use of watching and waiting for your show to come back on to the use of Streaming Video On Demand services. With the use of SVOD, consumers have more access to the content that they wanted to watch, whether it was old or new. Therefore, given the changes in how audiences consume media, ratings still matter, but there are more rules and/or criteria that are applied to the content that audiences are viewing.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, Nielsen was the only the only company that was measuring TV ratings and became notable for that. Nielsen has been conducting this type of research for the benefit of broadcasting networks since the 1950s. Since then, they have measured over “40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior- hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers.” (Nielsen.Com) Nielsen had a working system to measure how audiences were consuming things and that helped broadcasting networks score ad-revenue to maintain their media conglomerates. It is obvious to know, television watching has since changed since the 1950’s. Nielsen now measure how audiences consume content from social media conversation, “analyzing the cell phone bills of 65,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S” (Nielsen.com), digital ad ratings, and etc.
The fact that Nielsen is still finding ways to adapt to digital media landscape to research what audiences are watching and what they’re not watching, shows that ratings still have an importance on whether or not if these media companies continue to produce the content they thought would be a great investment. The added criteria of measuring social media conversation on Twitter was ingenious way to adapt to the times because people are very vocal on the website/ app. It only made sense to do so. When people aren’t watching television, what are they talking about?
However, there is a threat to Nielsen and other audience tracking companies and how they measure audiences consuming content especially with the use of OTT streaming services. This includes the big three, Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix. According to the Hollywood Reporter, these services do not share ratings. So it is up to assumption and theory to figure out what is their most popular shows. It is clear, that it is hard to know what is drawing people to subscribe to these services, but there has been failed attempts. A “company previously claimed that its service VideoPulse could collect and quantify ratings data about the irritatingly oblique streaming platform, a claim that Netflix consistently shot down. Now, VideoPulse is no more.” (Desta) The company had tried to use audio content recognition technology to conducts its research, but its information was never verified. There is a strong hold on what these OTT service have and what they don’t want their broadcasting competitors to know.
Even though there is the secrecy of how audiences consume OTT streaming services, ratings still play a role no matter what. “As long as revenue from advertisers remains part of the network TV business model, ratings will matter” (Adalian). Yes, OTT services are the newest and hottest thing, but companies still need an avenue to sell their products, which companies like Netflix do not have. Therefore, Ad-sales still run how we watch and what shows we watch as well.
Works Cited
Delete“Nielsen Solutions - What We Measure.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen,
www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
Bond, Paul. “Amazon, Netflix and Hulu's Most Popular Shows Revealed.” The Hollywood
Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/popular-tv-shows-netflix-
amazon-hulu-more-fun-facts-1045130.
Desta, Yohana. “Company That Kept Trying to Guess Netflix's Ratings Finally Gives
Up.” HWD, Vanity Fair, 25 May 2017, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/netflix-
ratings-symphony.
Adalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture,
www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Due to the way that audiences consume media, ratings have become conditional. The size of the audience for broadcast shows has been shifting since the start as more options came into play. In an inforgraphic published by Comscore called “Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices,” it becomes very evident that as the number of networks and shows increased, the less people were watching one particular program. “I Love Lucy” was able to have a huge audience because there was not much else on now, I have to pick to watch “Law and Order,” “The Voice,” or “American Ninja Warrior” because they are all on at the same time. My eyes can only watch one on one television.
ReplyDeleteWhen networks are taking ratings into account, they also have to consider how much money they are making from a show. This past year, “Timeless” (rating: 2.4) had a hard time getting renewed for a second season on NBC. In fact, it was canceled until it’s active, loyal fanbase made a big deal out of it on social media. On the other hand, “Taken” (rating: 1.4) was renewed for a new season without any issues. The reason that “Taken,” a show with a lower rating, was immediately allowed to continue is because it costs less money to make so, it makes more money for NBC. “Timeless” costs more but, it has better ratings (Adalian). If networks are more concerned with making money than they are with ratings, then ratings have almost become null. They only thing that ratings have really determined for networks is how much they can charge for advertisements. Unless the show is a hit like “This is Us,” there is not a huge difference in how much an advertisement will cost.
Where will ratings really matter then? SVOD platforms. Hulu is the only streaming platform that currently runs advertisements at a price between $25 and $30 cost per thousand impressions. Their advertisements are cheaper than NBC’s ($35 or more CPM) and an advertisement would run on a demographic across many shows (Learmonth). Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu have to consider how many people are watching their show so that they can continue to make money. If these platforms are not giving their subscribers the content that they want to see, then they will stop subscribing. People do not just turn on Netflix as background noise the same way they do with NBC. Subscribers use these services to watch the content that they want and if that content is not on the platform then they will stop subscribing. We as the public might not currently know what the ratings are for these services but, the services themselves keep track. They use the information to decide what gets to stay on their platform.
Adalian, Josef. “TV Ratings Are Way Down, But Does It Even Matter?” Vulture, 14 May 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/05/tv-ratings-are-way-down-but-does-it-even-matter.html.
Fulgoni, Gian. Parallel Universes: Measuring Eyeballs Across Platforms, Screens and Devices. ComScore, 8 June 2017, quinnipiac.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2432441-dt-content-rid-18446486_1/courses/MSS49502_18SP/Parallel%2BUniverses%2BMeasuring%2BEyeballs%2BAcross%2BPlatforms%2C%2BScreens%2Band%2BDevices%281%29.pdf.
Learmonth, Michael. “Hulu Ads A Bargain Compared To NBC.Com.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 26 June 2008, www.businessinsider.com/2008/6/hulu-ad-bargain.
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ReplyDeleteThe consumption of media happens every single day and the success of the media that we are consuming is ultimately left up to the consumers to determine. For this blog post, I will focus heavily on a television show as an example because it might be easier to understand in the context of my examples.
ReplyDeleteIn the very beginning when television became increasingly popular, ratings were extremely important and greatly contributed to the success of the show. Generating “buzz” is something that was incredibly beneficial then and continues to be beneficial from a network standpoint. The way we collect this data now has altered from the beginning, though. According to an article written by an individual who referred to himself and his household as a Nielsen household, “... Paul from Nielsen came by our apartment. Paul set up every television with a black box, accompanied by a chaotic clutter of electronics behind the set. All this equipment connected to our internet and was used to feed our viewing data to servers nightly.” (Mar.) While there are many more ways now, considering new technologies, to capture viewer information, a lot of ratings typically happen through the use of social media. While viewing a show, the use of “live-tweeting” has become increasingly popular and a great way to gage whether or not the audience of your content is pleased with what is being presented.
OTT services otherwise known as streaming services are on the rise and have been for a few years now. According to ComScore,“51 million homes used OTT services in April.” (Lipsman.) That is just one month, and respectively a lot of viewers taking liking to different kinds of content. When we talk about OTT services like Netflix and Hulu programs, including original content, most of that is heavily dependent on ratings considering there is not much if any advertising for the show anywhere off of social media platforms (again, why social media is an efficient component to all of this) In terms of the rating systems that are incorporated with each platform, Netflix has shifted from a 5-star rating system to a thumbs up, thumbs down which is considered to be “fundamentally flawed.” In an article written by businessinsider, this is explained with the statement; “with so much confusion around how the star-rating system worked, Netflix argued people were less motivated to rate titles.” (Smith.) This argues how important ratings still are. While to consumers, some may argue that they never look at reviews when deciding on which content to watch because they are sure to find something they like, they are able to find shows that they like because the rating system exists. To networks, it is important that “most-liked” content is displayed first, and what is the way that we can find out what content is most-liked? You got it, ratings, reviews and viewership.
All in all, while ratings and reviews may mean nothing to the lives of consumers who choose to view content without regard to who else is pleased with it, in order for networks and ott services to continue to produce “likeable” content that is wanted by audiences, it is important that this information continues to be collected.
Lipsman, Andrew, and Mike Rich. “State of OTT.” ComScore, www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/State-of-OTT.
Mar, Melvin. “We Were a Nielsen Family - Here's What It Was Like.” Vulture, 1 Dec. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/12/nielsen-family-what-its-like.html.
Smith, Dave. “Why Netflix's 'thumbs up, thumbs down' ratings system is fundamentally flawed.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 24 Sept. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/netflix-thumbs-rating-system-flawed-2017-9.
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ReplyDeleteThe evolution and accessibility of OTT services play a huge role in the shift from live television viewership to on demand viewership. Before OTT (Over-The-Top) streaming service was available, television networks used the Nielsen system to determine which shows were successful and which weren’t. However, with OTT streaming services becoming bigger and more desired, the Nielsen system finds itself with ratings at alarming lows. Some people make the argument that a rating system/the Nielsen rating system is no longer relevant, but I would say that’s far from true. The Nielsen system is a system that randomly selects and monitors channel and time selections different families choose over a certain time span. An article written on Nielsen.com had this to say about what Nielsen looks for, “Understanding what consumers are watching—and what they’re watching on—is more important than ever. Today, viewing video is a personal and mobile experience—anytime and anywhere. This media fragmentation is both a challenge and an opportunity. Our capabilities provide relevant metrics that are necessary to inform successful marketing and programming and drive continued growth. We measure more than 40 percent of the world’s viewing behavior—hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and millions of viewers”. However, if Nielsen system wants to stay relevant, they must adapt and find a new ways to measure a viewing audience. “Cord cutters” don’t appear on Nielsen’s rating system. Mike Rich wrote in his article, “What Behavviroal Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habbits of Cord-Cutters, “Cord-cutters are more likely to use a streaming box or stick to power their OTT viewing habits. These devices are present in 71 percent of cord cutting homes vs. 59 percent of all OTT viewing Wi-Fi homes. Interestingly, cord-cutters are slightly less likely to use game consoles (43 percent penetration) and connected TVs (42 percent penetration) than the average Wi-Fi home“. This shows Nielsen needs to find new ways to regulate their audience. One way Nielsen can still collect ratings is to turn their attention to social media. Start collecting live tweets, tweets, Facebook posts, or live video stories that talk about content on certain shows and begin to analyze that data. I believe they would notice a trend that the shows with the most tweets most likely have the most views/highest ratings. Another way to collect data is to partner up with these OTT services to help them figure out which shows are most successful. Nielsen has already proven it can work with a partner and help them determine which shows are most successful and which should be canceled and even though OTT services can monitor which shows are doing well, they most likely aren’t able to specify who exactly their audience is. A rating system can greatly help OTT services weave out which content was a mistake to add to their service and which content the people want more of.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest obstacles the Nielsen Company will face is how they manage to deal with big time networks that aren’t on an OTT services. Big time networks see their ratings plummeting and without their product being aired on an OTT service, they could expect to see a slippery slope. I believe there will always be a rating system, however I don’t believe they will be gathering their data from live cable television much longer.
“TV Ratings.” Television Measurement | Television Ratings | Nielsen, www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement/television.html.
“What Behavioral Data Tells Us About the OTT Viewing Habits of Cord-Cutters.” ComScore, Inc., www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/What-Behavioral-Data-Tells-Us-About-the-OTT-Viewing-Habits-of-Cord-Cutters.
Media as we know it is changing, social media streaming live television, OTT services like HULU and HBOGO and Netflix making consumers cut the cable cord for good. Appointment television is becoming a thing of the past. And because of that the rating system is as well.
ReplyDeleteRating systems are also on the ropes. With so many streaming services and consumers cutting cords, the ratings are down. But media is still being consumed. Ratings still matter, just because they are lagging behind the always changing fast pace world of modern day media, there still needs to be a way to track the success or failure of a television show or event. Without Ratings there would be no basis of what to charge advertisers for a commercial.
The problem we are having is keeping up with the cord cutters. Back when there was 5 networks ratings meant a whole lot. The NBA finals were on tape delay because of poor ratings until Larry Bird and Magic Johnson saved the NBA. Now people like myself watch the MLB World Series on a streaming service, all seven games. The challenge becomes keeping up with the streamers, and finding out what they are watching. The partnership of Sling TV and Comscore will help provide a baseline for advertisers but still there is quite a long way to go for the development of TV ratings. To show the importance of ratings to advertisers the comscore Vice president had this to say, "Addressable advertising for television content is projected to grow 66 percent this year to $1.3 billion in media spend**," said Cathy Hetzel, comScore executive vice president.” (comScore) With the industry growing so much the need for improvement on the analytic side of media is a necessity. People need to know who is watching what, when you are watching, and for how long. These are all crucial details for an advertiser when planning a marketing campaign.
Smart TV’s and game consoles are all ways that folks can avoid purchasing a cable box and still see all of the content they wish to see while paying the bare minimum for cable service. The market for these streaming sercices like game consoles and smart tv’s are all over the place. So many companies and brands provide you with an opportunity to stream live tv and use a service right at your fingertips like Apple, Amazon, Visio, Microsoft, Sony. All of these brands make a product that can get you to what you are trying to watch without cable connection.
These factors are putting the ratings in a limbo. On one hand you can see who is watching what on cable television. But at the same time the amount of people skinny bundling and cord cutting is increasing at an alarming rate. Ratings are important to many people and will always be important. We need TV ratings as a media community to make dollars not cents. Charge what is fair for advertising time on your network or in your service. The networks need it so they can air what is deserving of time slots and what can wait for a later date. Much like the NBA finals in the 70’s. Nobody watched so it was on delay. People are still watching the super bowl, it just may not be on cable television. Much like when more Networks sprouted and the top shows were not getting the ratings like when there were four networks. People are still watching, we just need to find out at what volume and how they are viewing the content. Adam Lella of comScore pointed out that the new products give access to OTT services and making streaming so easy “…as more of these devices were sold with built-in internet-streaming, more consumers had the ability to stream OTT content if they wanted to.” This quote shows how accessible the content is to anyone that is buying a game device, a fire stick, or even a new television.
Works Cited
ReplyDeletecomScore. “Sling TV Partners with ComScore to Offer First Ever Cross-Platform Addressable Advertising Measurement.” PR Newswire: News Distribution, Targeting and Monitoring, 4 Jan. 2018, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sling-tv-partners-with-comscore-to-offer-first-ever-cross-platform-addressable-advertising-measurement-300577409.html.
Lella, Adam. “How Important Is the OTT Device Market If the 'Future of TV Is Apps'?” ComScore, Inc., 12 July 2017, www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/How-Important-is-the-OTT-Device-Market-if-the-Future