When did television and digital media buying become so complex and fragmented?

A distinguished panel of guests including Justin Fromm, Head of Ad Sales Research, Hulu, Howard Shimmel, Chief Research Officer, Turner Broadcasting, Liz Huszarik, EVP Media Research & Insight, Warner Bros, Tom Ziangas, SVP, Research, AMC Networks and Moderator Eric Solomon, SVP, Digital Audience Measurement, Nielsen helped decipher the future of television and digital media.

The panelists did a brief 2014 recap of the media industry.  Some key highlights included: purposeful viewing (watching only shows we like), rapid speed of change in programming and content, viewers shifting to Video on Demand (VOD), tremendous competition for eyeballs, cable networks taking share from major networks, and a major shift in viewing away from television viewing to video streaming.  The panelists unanimously agreed that the industry must continue to produce quality programming and content distributed on multiple platforms and the content must be readily available and easy to find.

What can we expect in 2015 in terms of audience viewership, quality content, programming and data measurement?  All of the panelists agreed that it's time to recalibrate this over abundance of big data.  Measuring ad effectiveness across multiple platforms is challenging indeed.  The infrastructure is not currently available to effectively measure all the various devices that consumers use to view their favorite programs.  There is a tremendous need for aggregating data and viewership across multiple platforms.  The panelists agreed that there is an opportunity for Research Companies to develop "one important number" or algorithm that data scientists or media buyers could use to determine return-on-investment (ROI) or total audience reached. Perhaps Nielsen or ComScore will take up this challenge in the near future.

About the Author:  Kerry Inserra is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Zip2Media, a media planning and buying agency located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Zip2Media focuses on social media, SEO, SEM, traditional media, sports marketing and blogging.  Kerry has worked for CBS Radio/Television, ABC Radio/Television and Disney.  Follow her @kinserra or email her at Kerry@Zip2Media.com.