Complete Story
02/14/2018
No one really has any idea how many eyeballs are watching TV shows
We're currently in the era of 'peak TV' - with 500 or more scripted series being produced — but nobody seems to have a good handle on how many people are actually watching them.
That may not matter so much if you're Netflix or Amazon, because your subscribers pay the same amount whether they watch one show or twenty. But it matters a lot for $70 billion-plus ad-supported TV industry, which is facing a relentless 'TV is dying narrative' and seemingly fragile advertiser support.
Measuring audiences is a problem because there are more ways to watch the shows than ever before. And the more that TV content is delivered via digital pipes - like say through a Roku device - rather than over the air or through cable, the harder it is proving to track.
Yes, this is counterintuitive. After all, digital delivery generally leaves a data trail, which has long been one of the powerful differentiators for digital advertising. Who needs old-fashioned Nielsen households when you have real data?
But in reality, the more digital TV gets the more difficult it is to measure. And that potentially puts billions of ad dollars in jeopardy.
