Media Buyers Want C3 Ratings For Sports Programming
Sports TV programmers did not adhere to the "new industry metric of commercial-ratings guarantees of a year ago, and this year media buyers want to change that,'' according to Wayne Friedman of MEDIAPOST. A veteran media agency buyer said, "It's one of the industry's little secrets: Sports got a free pass last year. This year there will be discussions about this in the upfront.'' Last year, "virtually all nationally distributed entertainment TV programs were guaranteed on commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback, known as C3." Sports TV nets and programmers "defend their position to sell off the older program ratings metric," and the "primary reason is that Nielsen Media Research isn't ready for most sports programming." Nielsen last week "sent a client notice confirming it would only be delivering program ratings -- not commercial ratings -- for the first week" of CBS' coverage of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. Friedman notes that is because of the net's "usual effort, which jumps back and forth between regional games and messes with measuring commercial ratings." While execs indicate that Nielsen is "testing commercial ratings in the beginning weeks" of the MLB season on Fox, Nielsen currently cannot deliver "weekly commercial ratings for some sports programs -- something that is important to most sports TV programmers that need weekly data to monitor and adjust their advertising deals with marketers." While media buyers "understand Nielsen's current limitations, they say other sports programming is not affected." Another media-buying exec: "This is no reason why the Olympics, NASCAR, MLB's 'All-Star' game or 'Sunday Night Football' can't be on C3. Sports networks won't do it because the marketplace is so hot, with advertisers paying high single-digit to big double-digit increases" (MEDIAPOST.com, 3/24).
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