“The last year has placed the media industry at a crossroads, and it’s clear that the chosen path ahead is the road less traveled,” remarks Bill Livek, Executive VP and CEO of Comscore. “The marketplace is no longer willing to settle for a measurement source that relies on small panels to drive decision-making for a multi-billion-dollar industry. Rather, the appeal of the future is a transparent path built on a stable, reliable methodology and a foundation of proven technology, which captures the shift change of modern viewership consumption.”
With that, Livek has made it clear that Comscore has “pioneered” the modern technology powering the future of media measurement. And, the company executive trumpets that view in what he calls “an open letter to the industry.”
In the letter, Livek remarks that today’s audiences are watching what they want, when they want, on the devices of their choice. That’s hardly a surprise, but Livek stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t cause this shift.
“[T]he pendulum began to swing long before the early months of 2020,” he says. “However, the pandemic did accelerate this inevitable change, while, at the same time, bringing to light the many cracks that have long existed in traditional media measurement.”
Because of this shift, Livek says Comscore listened to its customers and “other leading industry voices — who all recognize the need to reject the status quo and rethink the entire approach to audience measurement.”
What does this mean? “[T]he outdated panel-dependent measurement from the past (and whose under-reporting cost the industry billions) no longer serves the diverse needs of today’s modern media environment.”
It is a direct shot at Nielsen, which is working hard to regain Media Rating Council accreditation.
Perhaps it is a response to a recent opinion piece published by one industry trade publication that criticized Comscore’s “modern technological approaches to audience measurement.”
Firing back, Livek remarks, “Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised at their admitted skepticism regarding the use of large-scale data, given the challenges they’ve had moving away from small panels with single digit response rates within their own service.”
From there, Livek’s open letter takes a page from the marketing and communications department, touting how Comscore sees things differently and has for more than 20 years “kept our focus on – and our investments in – the future, building the data infrastructure, tools, partnerships, and services for what comes next. With a DNA in digital measurement and advanced television, Comscore began providing deduplicated cross-platform media measurement more than 10 years ago. Comscore is confident in the representativeness of our reporting households, our partner Experian’s creditability as the leading credit bureau, and our transparent reporting of more than 250 national networks (which is done without the need for complex devices).”
The marketing-fueled letter continues with more claims about Comscore’s abilities and reputation, again in an attempt to negate any advancements at Nielsen.
“[W]hile others in the industry are only now beginning to consider a future of measurement that puts audiences first, Comscore has the infrastructure, methodology, and secure data assets in place to realize this future today,” Livek concludes. “We have spent the last decade providing interoperability with key third-party providers that connect buy-side and sell-side solutions … For years, the industry stuck with the same antiquated service out of fear of the risk of change. However, we are now at a point where the risk of staying with a provider incapable of measuring modern audiences is simply too great. The time for change is here, and the choice is clear. Only Comscore can deliver stable, reliable, accurate reporting built for the future of media, today.”
Whether the industry accepts that as fact, or as a self-indulgent marketing statement, remains to be seen.
