Sorting Out TV’s New Metrics

What’s the biggest hit of the new television season? That simple question has remained the same each fall for six decades, but the answer has gotten wildly more complicated.

These days it depends on whom you ask, when and how they watch TV and increasingly, where they hang out online. While technologies for how to watch TV (and express your love for your favorite shows) are proliferating and changing rapidly, the technologies for answering the most basic question in the business -- what people are actually watching -- are full of gaps. Tracking DVR viewing is slow, and advertisers don’t want to count viewers who are fast-forwarding through commercials. Tracking social-media buzz leaves out the many millions of nonchattering viewers. As audiences have fragmented, broadcasters are monitoring them in many ways, yet their core business—selling airtime to advertisers—is still tied to traditional ratings. The network or service that can unite all these pieces for a complete view of what everyone’s watching will hold the keys to the kingdom, because the answer determines where the money goes.