A new audience measurement initiative seeks to quantify media consumption habits across radio, television, PCs, smartphones and tablets.
By producing common metrics across all platforms at the scale and granularity required by both content providers and advertisers, project organizers seek to demonstrate the audience-wide and persons-level reach of each media platform.
Arbitron and comScore have agreed to partner on the project: comScore offers up its census and panel-based PC, mobile and TV set-top box measurement capabilities, and Arbitron brings its single-source, multi-platform measurement capabilities in its Portable People Meter (PPM) technology.
Sports media company ESPN is the partnership’s charter client, and will collaborate on the design.
The project is being driven by the multi-platform measurement requirements of ESPN, which delivers video, audio and display content via television (both in-home and out-of-home), online and mobile video, PC web, mobile web, apps, tablets, digital audio and terrestrial radio.
Current plans are to develop a service offering that would be available to all media companies, advertisers and advertising agencies that wish to understand and measure the audience size, composition and impact of media content and marketing efforts as listened to and viewed across multiple platforms.
"The real value to this project from a media buying perspective is that the way consumers are using media will now be reflected in the way advertisers can invest in media," said Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN Global Customer Marketing and Sales, when the new service was announced. "Making the measurement more complete makes the advertising more effective, which is a win for all parties involved."
Added Joan FitzGerald, comScore VP of TV & Cross-Media Solutions, "ESPN represents an ideal collaborator as we develop this product given its established brand presence across media channels. Together with Arbitron, we look forward to shedding new light on how audiences behave in a multiplatform environment to help propel the industry forward as we seek to understand how media content and advertising across multiple platforms builds audiences."
ESPN, comScore and Arbitron are planning a series of events on October 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the upcoming Advertising Week in New York to introduce the details of the initiative to the industry.
To see Mediacaster and Broadcaster Magazines’ archived reports about the introduction of the PPM in Canada, and learn more about its use, please click on a link below, or paste the URL into your browser.
Montreal Radio First to Measure Audiences with Portable People Meter
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/news/montreal-radio-to-measure-audiences-with-portable-people-meter/1000087549/
Portable People Meter Measures TV Audience
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/news/portable-people-meter-measures-tv-audience/1000079630/
The Truth About Portable People Meters
http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/news/the-truth-about-portable-people-meters/1000360248/
http://www.comscore.com/companyinfo
http://www.arbitron.com