“The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona
fide news exemption.”

Similarly, one wonders if they've been preented with any evidence that these shows would qualify as news at all.

The equal time rule stems from a time when video was distributed via the brpadcast airwaves, which were a finite resource owned by the public. The notion that the same guidelines and rules remain relevant today is preposterous.

Interesting point, Howard. Question. In terms of  available research dollars how big is DDL relative to straight TV ratings/demos as it relates to a would be data/audience supplier's potential income?

It's important to recognize that in today's market, we actually have two real "currency" providers for national TV. Nielsen is the predominant player for age/sex as we know, VideoAmp is the predominant player for advanced advertising or data driven linear. This situation is a remnant of the last few years, where Nielsen's measurement was panel based and VideoAmp had big data, which is necessary for both publishers and brands to effectively leverage DDL. The thing to watch is whether Nielsen is able to win back DDL share now that they have their big data product, and whether, if Nielsen is successful, VideoAmp can prosper based on owning the DDL market. 

Josh, you make a valid point about stations being able to afford two ciary based local market rating services, but it should be noted that these services were largely meterized--hence more expensive ---in the largest markets by 2000, which was probably a factor in Arbitron's demise as a supplier of local market TV ratings. 

Re the advent of ACR sets and their ability to identify content, that's a fair point, as well. However, what's also needed is a source to project viewers-per-set, not just set usage and for that you need more than ACR sets--you need a panel where people are somehow identified as program viewers by demos. Whether this is done via the outdated people meter button pressing system or by a more valid method--"photographing" the audience--- setting up such an operation at the scale required for some degree of stability--at least 150,000 homes  not 27,000 homes--you are talking about a very expensive operation. 

I'm not against anyone who tries to unseat Nielsen but, as I keep pointing out you need to be in it for the long haul, with deep pockets to absorb the red ink and, most important, you must show with compelling evidence that advertisers and programmers are making big mistakes by relying on Nielsen--and that what you are offering is meaningly more accurate. So far, not one of the challengers--and I worked  as a consultant for two of them--has even made that claim nor tried to substantiate it. 

I'm generally diainclined to comment on this topic, since the paper was a work for-hire by CIMM, who own it. But I think it's in bounds to say that the directive was very specifically to address the economics of currency. What does it cost to mount a service, and how many dollars are there available in the market?

I worked at Arbitron in the '80s and '90s. I lived through Arbitron exiting the (local) TV business. At the time we used to say amongst ourselves that there was enough money to support a service and a half. But focusing strictly on the economics, thanks to the advent of Big Data, a company today can license enough Smart TV and STB data, and indeed can license access to a panel for calibration, all for substantially less than Nielsen spends a year on their national TV panel. 

So whether or not the dynamics of the business are hospitable to multiple currencies, given the costs to mount a competitive currency service today versus the dollars available, there is enough available spend to fund at least 2 competitors. THis has not always been the case.

_________ 
Note: one might ask, why was there enough money for both Nielsen and Arbitron before the mid-80s? I can answer that. Two reasons:

(1) Because there weren't other things to spend research dollars on. Once services like Leigh Stowell, Marshall Marketing, Scarborough, and The Media Audit emerged, the willingness of broadcasters to buy two of the same thing evaporated quickly.

(2) The expansion of metered measurement. It was far easier to afford 2 diary-based services than 2 meter-based services.

By the late '80s, stations with 2 $750K ratings contracts woul simply not renew the dfirst one to expire. Then when the second one expired they'd go to each vendor and say, "$250K. Take it or leave it." One of us would take it.

Jack, having just read the report, what theyare actually saying is that using more than one metric as currency is the goal--even if thre is no consistency from one seller to the next re which metrics --or combinations of metrics--are the "currency" of the buy. So it's not just about encouraging other companies to compete with Nielsen--which is fine with me--it's the old multiple currency gambit that they seem to be advocating--with everybody doing their "thing" as we legacy types used to say in the 1960s. 

From the perspective of a media seller, paying for more than one currency makes no sense unless there were buyers who chose a second one that we would be forced to buy to do business with them.  It is a currency. Is there any other business where buyers and sellers use more than one?  Not that I know of. Currencies (Euros vs dollars for example) may differ but there is always a set exchange rate so it doesn't matter. In addition as each currency provider provides reasons to fault the other, the credibility of both suffer. As far as one side preferring higher ratings vs the other, that all fades away as we have learned when transitioning from diaries to meters to people meters etc.

Multiple media currencies never really worked. That's why they went away.  

Joe, re magazine research there were many competitors The Nielsen Media Service ( NMS ) , The Brand Rating Index ( BRI ), Simmons, The Target Group Index (TGI ) and, later, MRI founded by TGI's Timothy Joyce. Also, Politz tried belatedly to get in on the action. However these companies used different methodologies which produced very differrent audience estimates. MRI eventually won out because its method gave publishers mich larger audience estimates than  Simmons and MRI was able to measure hundreds of small circulation magazines that the Simmons methodology couldn't handle. 

Yes, Joe. The "fiesta" in question is the "multi-currency fiesta," as the marketplace was dubbed by Fox's Kym Frank at an early CIMM 2025 event.

Regarding a JIC being set up in the U.S. to decide what is the best TV rating service for national--and local--TV--why not. However a true JIC has active involvement by sellers buyers ( agencies ) and advertisers, it can not be dominated by the sellers. Also, if the sellers pay 80% of the costs for the  selected U.S. rating service monopoly and it's  run as a business it will, of necessity be far more responsive to the wishes of its primary funders--the sellers. In other words you get an inbalance of power that favors the sellers. Or will advertisers be willing to pay a fair share so they have a real say?

While there are JICs in other countries in many of them they have endorsed basically a people meter panel as the preferred methodology, employing fairly small numbers of homes--not the big data approach for set usage that Nielsen has been presured into adopting in the U.S.. So, unless alternative ways to view "TV" content are lacking in those countries and ratings aren't fragmenting they are well behind the times re the need for larger sample sizes--even if all members of their JICs agree that what they have is best. 

It's important to understand what happened in the past in TV when there were two "currencies". First and foremost they were all purporting to measure the same thing--audience. Not different things--like audience versus liking or interest in ads. Second, each of the ad agencies settled on one or the other of the two alternatives for local market TV, not both. This created a situation whereby stations had to subscribe to both services so they could sell time to all of the agencies--a very expensive situation. 

Fast forward to national TV/CTV and I gather that CIMM is saying that the industry can support two competing audience measurement services--with both claiming to measure exactly the same thing--audience--- plus whatever additional refinements they might offer. But the standard "currency" would be audience. Which  means that, as before in local market TV, the agencies and their clients would settle on one of the contenders as their basic--or "standard"--- source, leaving the sellers to buy both.Ldet's face it, Nielsen will win in most of these decisions as the incumbent of long standing. I don't think that most sellers will jump with delight at the prospect of supporting both services when one is used for almost all of the buys. 

As I point out in my soon-to-be released book about TV, "TV Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", the basic reason why nobody has unseated Nielsen in past attempts is that no proof has been offered to indicate that its findings are significantly faulty. Consequently, a rival service struggles fitflly to sustain itself against Nielsen--especially if it is producing essentially the same findings. Even when the rival cuts its prices--as has been offered in past challenges---to get its foot in the door, the offer is refused as the sellers dare not make  a cold turkey switch away from Nielsen. Suppose the newbie screws up and fails to supply the needed data. Horrors! So they would be stuck with buying both services for two or three years--pending decisions by the buying community as to which service they want.

How would such decisions be made? Simple. If one of the two rating services consistently shows slightly larger audiences, but otherwise there were no differences--especially in terms of the respective shares of audience among the various sellers--- many agencies would favor the service with the lower ratings as  this works to keep CPMs down. Would that be an appealing prospect for the primary funders of the rating services--the sellers? I doubt it.. 

I'm not against competition, but if you want to unseat Nielsen you are in for a long haul battle and you need deep pockets to absorb the inevitable red ink. I seriously doubt that a rival service could capture more than 10% of the business by merely being available--without showing that Nielsen is getting it all wrong.

One of the things that we were attracted to with AGB (I signed us up -- MTV Networks) was that they had a much more collaberative way of working with their clients. They truly listened to us and our concerns.

Let's not forget that the reason Arbitron went away was because the idustry decided it didn't want to pay for two essentially identical local TV Measurement services.  The reason AGB and others failed was also because the industry didn't want to pay for two national meaasurement services.  Sellers won't want another national currency unless it provides higher ratings than Nielsen.  Buyers won't want one unless it provides substantially more types of data than Nielsen.

So which "two" will it be? Place your bets.

 Joe.   Thanks for the thoughtful coverage. Just a couple of clarifications in the interest of accuracy.

The Principles are intentionally technology-agnostic. They’re designed to govern effects and accountability rather than name specific tools. Trying to “instill ethics in agents” directly would be premature and likely ineffective; ethics, and enforceability, can only attach to humans and institutions, not software. Agents don’t have legal standing or duty of care, so accountability has to sit with those who design, deploy, and oversee them.

That’s also why the Principles are paired with implementation: Ethics Connect, the AI Integrity Shield, a 4/22 AI conference focused specifically on agents in advertising, and a forthcoming Principles & Practices companion guide with concrete illustrations.

Appreciate you pushing the conversation forward—this is exactly the right set of questions to be asking.
That’s also why we’re pairing the Principles with implementation: Ethics Connect for ongoing guidance, the AI Integrity Shield for audited practice, a 4/22 AI conference focused specifically on agents in advertising, and a forthcoming Principles & Practices companion guide with concrete illustrations and applied examples.

Think of the Principles as the constitution; the tools and guidance are where we the rubber meets the road against fast-moving realities like A2A,  translating core values into practical decision-making guidance for a changing marketplace.

The implementation of diversity and inclusion is still very much in practice.  The overt promotion of "DEI" and practice of equity are two totally different things.

I've looked at government job openings and I've looked at job openings across a multitude of industries - including the media industry.

The promotion may be focused on merit and achievement, but the guidlines for hiring is anti-discriminatory.

5 USC § 2301 (Merit System Principles) U.S. Government:
"All employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or handicapping condition ."
 
5 USC § 2302 (Prohibited Personnel Practices):
This law explicitly makes it illegal for any federal official to discriminate for or against any employee or applicant on the basis of protected classes (race, color, religion, sex, etc.)

Just because companies are not promoting DEI does not mean they are not practiciing DEI. Many companies still promote "a work environment that embraces diversity and inclusion" in job applications.

You can't be upset at one administration for not promoting it and forcing it on corporate America, but never seemed to be upset when the previous administration was strong arming corporate America to promote it.  This was/is very much a political effort.  The general public wasn't screaing at corporate America to include equity in its hiring practices.

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.