TV Everywhere Makes Multiscreen, Cross-platform Measurement an Imperative

The rise of the multiscreen phenomenon for video viewing started in earnest with Netflix and Hulu, but has been inexorably driven forward by pay-TV operators and broadcasters—their TV Everywhere initiatives have been popular and have succeeded in increased availability of digital video viewing across the board. It’s no wonder that marketers and media companies are looking for ways to take a cross-platform approach to audience engagement—but so far the concern over cannibalizing existing media channels has persisted.

However, there’s evidence that broadcast and cable networks can actually experience net revenue gains as these changes unfold, given the right advertising approach. In fact, a cross-platform approach to monetization is rapidly becoming an imperative for an industry in the throes of massive behavioral changes.

Right now, video viewing is a complex and fragmented environment, in which complementary activities (and at times conflicting activities) are taking place across multiple screens. Distraction is a concern for advertisers—if someone is watching a show and then tweeting about that show during linear commercials, how can they capture that screen shift to make the most of their engagement efforts? This has made accounting for viewing behavior orders of magnitude more difficult than it ever has been in the past.

“In 2006, around the dawn of YouTube and online video in general, I said, while TV is not extinct, the upfront as we knew it has come to an end, yielding the birth, this year, of a true video upfront, which will adapt and transform because consumers say so,” explained John Muszynski, chief investment officer at media buyer Spark. “Here we are eight years later, and I find myself uttering the exact same words. The biggest difference being, of course, that the consumer has evolved significantly since the early days of online video. Today, traditional TV viewing is down marginally, while we are seeing across-the-board gains in time-shifted, online, mobile and over-the-top video viewing. But the measurement systems have not yet caught up.”http://www.techzone360.com/topics/techzone/articles/2014/06/11/381073-tv-everywhere-makes-multiscreen-cross-platform-measurement-an.htm