Initiative looks to create nationally projectable “mega-sample” of TV tuning data leveraging the best aspects of both data sources
New York, NY, August 18th, 2016 – The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) today issued an RFP seeking to combine Smart TV and Set Top Box (STB) data for the purpose of creating a nationally projectable “mega-sample” of TV tuning data.
The RFP is being issued in recognition of the fact that both Smart TV and STB datasets complement each other and that through combination can provide some of the data that each other lacks.
“STB data are currently being made available to media measurement vendors from a number of providers, but these data only represent about 40% of tuning in the U.S. and particularly lack coverage of MVPDs in major markets such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles,” says Jane Clarke, Managing Director and CEO of CIMM. “Additionally, MVPDs are not always making their data available house-hold level data, creating a need to find alternative sources of census-level TV tuning data from Smart TVs. By combining these datasets, we can create, or more accurately model, a nationally representative footprint.”
Clarke says that Smart TVs have several advantages over STB data in that they have the ability to know when the TV set is on or off and can report all content that “hits the screen,” whereas STB data only reports linear viewing that passes through the STB or network. Additionally, Smart TVs can report data in near real time, while STB is typically reported on a weekly basis.
Among the differences, MVPDs, she says, have a clear first party billing relationship with their household, enabling an accurate blind-match to data enrichment providers, while Smart TVs can only be blind-matched to their respective household addresses using IP address.
Clarke says these and other reasons make a strong case for the need to combine Smart TVs and STBs. Doing so within the same households could, she said, aid in the development of modeling algorithms and new procedures that could be applied to increase the value of the combined datasets.
The RFP does not call for a specific method of combination or vendor, but rather indicates an openness to any approach, either from research and technology vendors who are licensing both Smart TV or STB data or from either STB or Smart TV providers who to want to combine both datasets or from “Big Data” firms who could provide the infrastructure for combining large datasets.
CIMM is looking for proposals and budgets to be submitted by September 30, 2016.
Interested parties can download the RFP at https://cimm.wpengine.com/initiatives-2/rfps/ .
About CIMM
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is comprised of leading video content providers, media agencies and advertisers that aim to promote innovation and foster efficiencies in audience measurement for television and cross-platform video. CIMM explores and identifies new methodologies in audience measurement and verifies these approaches through a series of pilot tests and studies conducted with independent measurement companies. CIMM’s primary focus is on two key areas: the current and future potential of television measurement through the use of return-path data, and new methods for cross-platform media measurement. www.cimm-us.org
