The early 1960\u2019s were interesting times for radio and television, as Congress considered regulating audience research. How simple those days must seem now that the Media Rating Council\u2014formed as the media industry\u2019s self-regulating body\u2014has tackled cross-media audience measurement.<\/p>\n
This becomes more evident when one considers that the MRC<\/a> is still dealing with standards for digital ad viewability and traffic fraud. It\u2019s made great progress on that front, but there\u2019s no resting on laurels for George Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of the MRC, which audits more than 100 products a year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re consumed by those two business cycles, accrediting things and writing standards,\u201d Ivie says in this interview with Beet.TV. Allowing that \u201cthe timeline is somewhat difficult,\u201d Ivie<\/a> says the MRC hopes to complete cross-media standards for digital video within the first quarter of 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to develop consensus on these things,\u201d a list of which includes:<\/p>\n \u2022 Establishing common metrics across different media types<\/p>\n \u2022 Measurement of duration<\/p>\n \u2022 De-duplication of audiences across media types<\/p>\n \u2022 Setting reporting parameters for days, dayparts, etc.<\/p>\n \u2022 How to measure audiences (age, gender, targeting characteristics)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very complex standard that we\u2019re working on and it has a big reach,\u201d says Ivie. \u201cRight now we\u2019re concentrating mostly on video but it will be expanded later to include audio and print and other types of media.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the more vexing aspects of video measurement is to differentiate the value of different types of media vehicles appropriately, according to Ivie. \u201cThings like how long people stay with the video, how they interact with the video, if there is any measurement of interaction,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n These elements will be measured on a common basis and then compared with TV measurement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also are concentrating on differentiating and measuring ads and content separately, which is a key concept of the standard,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Asked to assess the MRC\u2019s progress with regard to cleaning up the digital ecosystem, Ivie says viewability was a tough standard to set. \u201cIt certainly was highly disruptive in the digital marketplace. Very tough medicine to swallow. But now it\u2019s been assimilated, made more consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n