Frank Comerford de NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal announced that its 42 NBC/Telemundo stations and seven regional sports networks are officially moving to 100 percent impression-based buying for all local advertising campaigns as of April 1, 2021.
After the stations announced their move to impressions in September 2019, clients and agencies who were not trading on impressions were granted additional time to transition while they evaluated the impact the change would have on their business and clients. With the close of the transition period at the end of Q1, all of NBCUniversal’s owned TV stations and regional sports networks will be measured using CPMs only.
“Our local businesses were among the first to put a stake in the ground around the move to impression-based ad buys more than a year ago, giving local marketers a better currency for measurement. Utilizing impressions puts local TV on a level playing field with digital, since advertisers will no longer need to convert ratings to impressions in order to evaluate an overall ad buy. As always, our teams are ready to work hand-in-hand with local advertisers to deliver successful campaigns across all DMAs,” said Frank Comerford, Chief Revenue Officer, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, NBCUniversal.
The move to 100 percent use of impressions, instead of traditional rating points, by stations and RSNs, will enable marketers to plan holistically across platforms and screens, and will more accurately showcase the increase in viewers as a result of the addition of BBO households. Nielsen’s introduction of broadband-only (BBO) homes into local market samples begin on April 1st, 2021.
“Moving to impressions brings the added benefit of eliminating zero cell quarter-hours, which had previously resulted in a reduction in inventory. Ratings, unlike impressions, are held to Nielsen’s minimum reporting standard thresholds. Ratings that do not meet these minimums are reported as zero viewership, while impressions are reported when viewing occurs in all quarter hours, effectively adding back anywhere from 5-20% of viewers depending on the daypart. This provides additional inventory for agencies and clients to reach their impressions goals on buys,” explained Michael Chico, EVP of NBC & Telemundo Owned Television Station Sales, NBCUniversal.
