Welcome to my Thinking World…

In this white-paper, we examine how OTT audiences consumed ad-supported versus non-ad-supported services over a period of two years. OTT streaming services, as well as advertisers and their agencies, use Comscore’s trusted measurement to understand the OTT landscape and make informed ad buying and sponsorship decisions. 

It is no surprise that technology is radically changing the media industry. More people are consuming video content on platforms other than traditional TV sets, such as computers, smartphones, tablets and over-the-top (OTT) devices. Measuring audiences across these new platforms is critical for both the sell-side and buy-side of the business, and new metrics of success will help better define consumer outcomes from advanced advertising campaigns.

This shift to cross-platform viewing has highlighted the critical need for a common metric that media buyers and sellers can use to seamlessly transact across all platforms. The traditional ratings metric (which is defined as the percentage of various age/gender populations) is quickly migrating to impressions—the actual or projected number noted as (000). Major industry players have announced their move to an impressions-based ad sales model with the hope that this will give media sellers more pricing power, more audience granularity and a frictionless cross-media planning and buying experience. The move to impressions is a natural evolution for local TV groups that have seen audiences migrate to digital and cross-platform viewing and is a step closer to a true, cross-platform apples-to-apples currency.