Spot on Bruce.

Very common is that the technical definition is that 2 seconds can be counted as being a viewer.   I am not sure of what Samsong's Active Users definition is.   Is being an 'Active User' need to have viewed just once day, several day, or 'every' day.

In essence a single two-second 'view' (probably when selecting 'what to view today') would account as much as those who view every day.   Many The 'two-seconder' would probably be over-stating in the MAU count whereas those who 'watch a lot every day' would probably be under-stating in the MAU.

And further, the average daily rating would provide a better picture of viewers.

Yep, no doubt about it, fraud is a big problem and is now moving into CTV in a big way. And, yes, it's being largely ignored or regarded as relatively insignificant. In fact, one wonders how many of those digital ad spend figures we are fed on a regular basis represent ads that were paid for but were served to bots, not consumers. Throughout all of this there is the disturbing contention that it's up to the buyer--the ad agency or its client--- to take steps to curb  or avoid fraudulent "impressions" and CTRs---but why shouldn't that be the sellers responsibility?You would never get away with that kind of thinking in "legacy media".  

The buying agencies sure as he'll don't want to call attention to fraud cuz it might threaten their big-ass digital "commissions."

Laurie, I would guess that a lot of excess  screen usage by young men, in particular, is due to peer pressure. If you don't use one gismo or another that happens to be in vogue, you might be considered a "square". So you use it--or them--those screens--when communicating with your peers and they recripocate--until you grow up and have more important fish to fry than pleasing your inner circle--like finding a mate,  getting married, raising a family, deveolping your business career, etc.

This number must surely be overstating audience size. Anyone that has ever used a Samsung Smart TV knows that by simply connecting it to Wifi and turning on the power, it will automatically open and tune to Samsung's built-in FAST. There used to be ways to delete or remove the app, or to default open to another app, but those have all been removed via system updates. If those "power ons" are treated as viewers or counted in any concept of audience, they are not really counting viewers, they are instead counting owners of Samsung hardware, which is very different to advertisers. 

@Ed Papazian: Great point. I didn't analyze how and why money was shifting from one line item to another, just reported on what the planned shifts are. I mean, AI spending could be coming at the expense of search, etc.

Joe, as you know, most national branding advertisers consider CTV and linear TV as "TV", so in reality, "their "TV" spending plans call for more ad dollars in "TV". They don't care all that much about exactly how the consumer accesses the content, so long as they can attain the total reach they need, target consumers when possible, place their ads in compatible and quality programs, get their ads seen and control their CPMs. This kind of research is too digital-centric in my humble opinion. "TV" remains the dominant medium of choice for national branding campaigns. 

These "altered images" you refer to was typically standard stuff for print - make sure the lighting is good or alter the exposure or contrast to show more of what was actually there. The closest I'd argue would be airbrushing.  I worked at an agency at the beginning of my career and once the shots were chosen by the art director, out went the negatives so they could air brush wrinkles and imperfections so models would look 10 years younger with perfect skin and no blemishes.  Personally, I'd consider airbrushing a bit closer to altering images for affect than anything.

AI is a completely fabricated image or video.  They're not comparable.  It's fabricating something out of thin air which, in too many cases, is being presented as real.

Finally, congrats on meeting the Big Guy - I'm sure it will be a memory that will not soon fade.

BTW, did you ask him to guest-pen a future RW&B blog?  I'm sure it would be good for clicks :)

I think an alternate 'threat made of jest' could be "If it's not out in full of bull-shit ...".

The offer is gone on the microsite 
 

Cute idea but the Clueless tie in is off the mark -- as if Cher would wear that type of plaid pattern. Cher's outfit was a yellow plaid with a different plaid structure than the og fit. Go big and do the actual tie in or .......

What are the benefits of Culturelle?

https://www.dietofcommonsense.com/culturelle-probiotic/

Open AI Againt humman. nice share!

https://mavitaksi.com/kapakli-korsan-taksi

What a major coincidence. Did he have anything to say that was reassuring?

Nice

And CBS News will always be the dog in the ratings as it has been for decades before and well behind ABC & NBC which will never get out of 3RD place no matter who the anchor is in my opinion. I don't watch the national news at 6:30PM on The Big 3 broadcast stations.

I think outside of the O&Os there will only be 3 major TV Station Groups which will be Nexstar, Sinclair, & Gray in my opinion. I think that Scripps would like Gray buy them than Sinclair which Scripps has a poison pill that could hurt anyone that wants to buy them and maybe even ION Network as well. 

West Michigan will get a solo ABC station as WOTV & WZZM SATs merge into one which was going to happen in 91 but then owner Northstar of WZZM didn't have the money to buy channel 41 and LIN owner of WOTV channel 8 which changed it's call letters back to Wood TV in spring of 92 and gave channel 41 the WOTV call letters to them which was an LMA until fall of 2002 when LIN bought WOTV outright.

NextGen Acela - one of the few in service!

@Ken Fadner: Good question. I have no idea if it was serendipity, or something else. I'm just reporting what happened. My guess is that Biden's travel plans were last minute, and I was already reserved in a seat the Secret Service determined to be the best available option and that they profiled me in advance somehow and figured I was harmless. It surprised me.

But Joe ... how did Joe happen to sit next to Joe??

Joe an amazing serendipity! Socrates famously didn’t want his speeches written down (on wax or papyrus), precisely because words lose context and can’t defend themselves once they circulate. Your piece captures that same problem in the age of AI, and your emphasis on disclosure and restraint feels like the modern answer.

Wayne, if the expanded station groups try to pressure the networks in order to reduce their share of the re-transmission fees they run the risks of the networks cutting back on unprofitable national programming thereby creatng voids which they, the stations , would have to fill. Worse, such "pressure" may cause the networks to accelerate their thinking about how to sever their ties with specific station affiliates and opt for more flexible content distribution methods. At present, they are only  thinking about such moves but taking no action. Why speed up the process?

Dan, no question that my statement relative to media was a broad, over generalization and extreme. That was i's point. I personally work around linear TV advertising, and used to work in newspapers before entering the digital world, so I know well the power and resilience of older forms of media distribution. However, I don't think that anyone a few decades ago would have anticipated the develop;ment of trillion dollar value digital utility companies with profits fueled significantly or entirely by "commercial communication" (advertising) and every other media company in the world added up still pale in comparison to them. Thus, I call them obsolete because I don't know that they are survivable. I don't know how they will acquire customers, advertisers and the capital needed to serve them in this new media environment.