Nielsen Will Measure TV Audiences For Individual Ads in C3 Overhaul

C3, TV’s standard metric for commercial measurement since 2007, could be on its last legs. Nielsen said today it will create more precise Nielsen Individual Commercial Metrics, in which its audience estimates will be based on each individual ad, instead of overall commercial minutes. The switch, the company said, will help narrow the gap between digital and linear measurement. While Nielsen will begin preparing for the new metric early next year, the company expects that it will not replace C3 until fall 2024. Until then, the Individual Commercial Metrics will run parallel to C3 measurement. As part of the move, Nielsen is working with video platform asset management company Extreme Reach, to encode most of national linear TV spots with Nielsen’s watermarks, an initiative that will roll out in the first half of 2022. Nielsen Will Add Set-Top Box, Smart TV Data to National TV Measurement Service This would shift transaction from the C3 metric, which is based on the average of all commercial minutes in a program. Instead, Nielsen will measure TV on a subminute level, providing audience estimates that it says are closer to digital. “By transforming our TV measurement and moving to Individual Commercial Metrics, both media buyers and sellers will be able to maximize the value of their inventory as well as capitalize and drive return on investment of their advertising spend across the rapidly converging traditional and digital landscapes,” said Kim Gilberti, svp, product management, Nielsen, in a statement. The company said it will overhaul its process for collecting and crediting watermarks beginning in early 2022, as the first step in the process. This will allow the company to detect watermarks more frequently within any given minute. Its TV measurement will also use Gracenote Content Signatures, allowing it to properly credit content that is not watermarked. “Nielsen’s ongoing efforts to embrace the morphing worlds of linear and digital TV now provide a means for marketers and their agencies to understand and value digital and linear TV commercials in a directly comparable way, which is a distinct improvement for the industry,” said Gaurav Agarwal, COO, Extreme Reach, in a statement. Trying to calm the industry The plans come as Nielsen continues trying to convince the industry that it should remain the primary currency upon which media is transacted. In September, its national TV measurement service, which was placed in the penalty box by the third-party accreditation firm the Media Rating Council following months of questions about the accuracy of Nielsen’s in-house panel data over the duration of the pandemic. Nielsen has vowed to make the appropriate fixes, but several companies and organizations are working to create their own measurement alternatives, including NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia. The C3 update is one of several adjustments that Nielsen has planned as it continues to work toward Nielsen One, a single cross-platform metric that is aimed at providing the industry with more comparable measurement between linear television and digital. In September, the company said it will add set-top box and smart TV data to its national TV measurement service next year. This same month, Nielsen said that its local TV ratings service, which also lost its accreditation, will switch to impressions-based buying next year and will begin counting broadband-only homes as part of its measurement. And last month, the company reorganized and rebranded its streaming metrics.