Happy Monday War & Peaceniks! Let’s take on the paytriarchy.
Last week, I diagnosed the cancer growing untreated in the Media industry: Endless layers of platforms, services, content, and costs have created an epic paradox of choice, dramatic audience fatigue, and a chaotic corn maze of login matrices that are destroying the user experience and eroding the business models of companies in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Despite more than a decade in streaming video, audio, and gaming, and the invasion of Media by Big Tech, the user experience – for users, subscribers, and advertisers – is now getting shittier, not better. Even worse, the walled gardens that Big Media and Tech insist on building around their own data, systematically prevents the ecosystem from attempting to cure itself.
Beyond the escalating frustrations of audiences and advertisers, one net result of this cacophony of content and data is that consumers are now starting to use less Media each day.
Just as I wrote that, as if on cue, the American advertising trade association, the 4As, issued a report declaring the industry unprepared to take the urgent next steps desperately needed to improve TV advertising measurement and currency and to solidify the currently shaky foundation of the television ad economy. In their assessment, the 4As admitted the enormous upside of a new systems of currencies, but said the upside needs to wait because shit’s hard, man.
“A multi-currency market would create opportunities in the areas of Local TV, Advanced Audiences, and use of outcome-based metrics like search lift and store visits. However, our committee thinks it is important to be realistic about how the industry can arrive at such a market successfully. It is also important to consider the complexity that such a market will add to an already complex system and to appreciate that any long-term solution requires thoughtful collaboration.
The 4A’s Measurement Committee believes that the advertising industry is not yet prepared to move to multi-currency national TV demo-based ratings in 2024. Each of the four major currency vendors is now talking to the MRC, but the estimated timetable to accredit their products is unknown. Agencies have limited bandwidth to perform multiple currency metric assessments without taking focus away from serving their marketing clients.”
The 4As’ biggest rationale for delay of a new multiple currency TV ratings system is the new currency companies’ inability to receive accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC). It should be noted that MRC is the same organization which took away accreditation from Nielsen because their methodology proved to be inaccurate BS, and then reaccredited Nielsen without ever really stating what changed about their antiquated panel system to make it more accurate it or less full of shit.
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