Numeris’ video audience management system to go national

Audience measurement company Numeris will fully roll-out its video audience management (VAM) nationally in mid-2023 after delivering preliminary datasets to members for its Ontario and Quebec panels. The non-profit organization announced last week in a release that the single source national panel would capture ratings for both traditional TV and online platforms, with datasets to capture audience behaviours on all platforms and devices on both a duplicated and unduplicated basis. In a phone interview, Numeris’ senior vice-president of cross-media, business development and communication, Catherine Malo said the national single source panel, designed in partnership with data company Kantar Media, would allow Numeris to look at both national and provincial audience management data, and eventually at the same level as its meter panel, where panelists wear electronic devices called personal people meters (PPM). The Ontario and Quebec VAM panels, which launched in 2018 and started collecting viewership data by device last fall, initially captured audiences by block hours, but were expanded in November to capture what specific programs were being watched, Malo said. The preliminary datasets shared with its membership, which is made up of broadcasters, advertisers and agencies, captured pre-pandemic audience data, from November 2019 to mid-March last year. Malo said those initial datasets primarily required broadcasters to tag their content, with Numeris initially asking them to focus on longform content that was also aired on linear television. But Numeris also captured wider audience data for a host of platforms who are not among its membership, including Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and Vimeo LLC on an “inclusion list”, Malo said. “So for example for Netflix, we are able to understand consumption of Netflix by which device, by whom it’s done and when it’s done and whether it’s done through the app or through the mobile site,” Malo said. “We don’t have the information for Netflix to the granularity of that program or content level, but we do understand Netflix from a Netflix consumption in a passive way.” That inclusion lists gives Numeris “a real understanding of the video consumption” on those platforms, even without the granular program data, Malo said, because it allows the company to see “what consumers are doing, how they navigate from one program to another, from one device to another, and at what time of the day.” Malo said Numeris was also in discussions with major “pure-play” platforms such as Facebook Inc. and Google to join as members to give the company a better understanding of consumption level per type and piece of content in Canada. The company said in last week’s release that unifying online and linear television behaviour at a national level will provide the media industry with a reliable, consistent, standardized and neutral source of audience data and metrics that would enhance the understanding and credibility of Canada’s video landscape. Kristin Wozniak, Numeris’ vice president of analytics and insight, said in the release that in-depth understanding of cross-platform video usage had “been a blindspot in the Canadian industry, and Numeris' national VAM rollout is an important step in understanding the complex relationship between linear television and online video consumption, including the all important measurement of unduplicated reach across platforms.” Malo said it was too early to release insights gleaned from the Ontario and Quebec panels to the public, but said the company should be able to share “a little more, probably starting next calendar year.” Complete datasets from those panels will also be delivered to Numeris’ PPM members in the coming years, with the first release set to be by the end of the 2021 summer. -- Reporting by Adam Langenberg at alangenberg@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Numeris’ video audience management system to go national

News | January 18, 2021

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Numeris’ video audience management system to go national

News | January 18, 2021

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