Ukraine shows might and are fighters, I hope that at some point that Putin will say enough since he is a mad man like the Iranian government no end inslight. And I'm not surprised that Russia is helping IRAN attacking American military targets/bases as I wasn't a fan going into IRAN and getting into war, I understand the why don't want IRAN with a nuke to end the world I'm not a fan of theses forever wars where they never end UGH.

I'll always support our troops no matter what and pray for their safety and return home, along with the Ukrainian military as well. Just sad history is repeating itself and heading to WWIII I hope I'm wrong on that Dave.  

Bring it on, John!

Aaah ... then that means that every person buying a lottery ticket that they AI'd will become millionaires.

But not Netflix?

Joe, I'm at a loss to get how any highly general compilatiion of this sort "guides" anyone re the upcoming upfront. As for the  finding that 19-49s do two thirds  of their ad-supported viewing via streaming, that ignores the huge difference in ad clutter per hour between the two platforms. Take that into account and linear may generate half of the 18-49 GRPs. But even so---so what?

The only solution is to deal directly and maintain hands-on control over where your ads are placed, when they appear, how the "audience" is measured, etc. 

I hope that the folks who made up that pie chart know that very few of You Tube's ad dollars come from the same ad budgets that buy time on Disney/NBC/CBS and WBD, etc. So the latter are not really competing with the You Tube for them--as yet. 

Dan C from MS Entertainment? You are not a journalist. Your company is made up. You may not even be real. 

CBS was a great news organization that has been chewed up as the Ellisons became lapdogs to an insane wannabe monarch. There is no integrity in what they are doing and likely will do with CNN. Just greed and list for power. 

Gord--Great post. It has always made sense to get out of the box to think out of the box. Walks at work have always represented great neutral ground when talking to team members, including around sensitive issues and a break from the cycle of endless meeting room gatherings. And, of course, walking appears to be the best thing one can do for longevity and basic health. After a series of back issues, two miles a day, outside, is part of my daily routine. Keep on walking!  

"Ellison responded with what probably was anticipated, that “editorial independence will absolutely be maintained. It is maintained at CBS. It'll be maintained at CNN.”

60 Minutes this past weekend had another fabulous edit hatch job on the interview with Pete Hegseth where CBS edited in a totally different answer from Hegseth to a totally different question that was asked by interviewer, Major Garrett.

A lot of money being spent to try to reach viewers who gave up on the legacy news networks years ago from such deceptive "reporting."

"Maintaining" truth was thrown out the window years ago and the viewing public understands this.

[H]Ellison bloodline is toxic to under-25 y.o. CBS, TikTok, maybe even the movie biz, will all degenerate into various degrees of fringe brands. People in media have zero clue but that's okay; in fact: It's a Good Thing! 

Maarten, as usual you paint a stark picture of the future of those poor agency "holding companies"--they are doomed like the proverbial Dodo. Their holding company clients are taking  stuff in-house and the tech giants will soon  so dominate ad spending that the agency media shops will become irrelevant. The tech sellers will fashion the ads--aided by AI---and handle the media buying and placements which, of course will be automated using "data" to determine what each brand gets. Yep. If I believed that and I worked at one of those walking dead agency holding companies I'd be contemplating an exit strategy.

But, as you know, I don't buy into the scenario when it's articulated in this fashion. Yes, adjustments should be made--not just by the agencies but by their holding company clients and the holding company media--including the tech giants. And I've no doubt that changes will be made.  Consolidation is happening eveywhere, not just at the agencies. It's the only solution when economic growth slows and there are more players than are sustainable by the available sources of income. We aren't going back to the good old days when there were fewer silos and we had momentum. We have matured as a nation and now we have to operate accordingly.

While we are doing flashbacks...it was not a big deal. At least not to us at Grey. Because our great, legendary Helen Johnston said, "What's the big deal. It's like Farenheit and Celsius. It's still just as warm no matter what thermometer you use". 

While we are talking old days. We had her at a Block Drug meeting where the client, Leonard Block was trying to blame lower denture cleanser sales on Nielsen. Helen simply said, "Better dentistry" and grabbed her purse and walked out of the room.

Joe, interesting piece--many good points --especially the trip back to 1987. It should be noted that when that rather important change in methodology took effect, Nielsen had been testing it for some time and subscribers who were paying attention would have known more or less what changes in audience levels were to be expected from these tests. 

The same point applies today. The new system's data has been available for some time and the major agencies know  how different the overall "viewing" levels are for the "currency" demos:18-49 and 25-54. The key point, which I keep making, is that unless Nielsen is for some reason crediting some sellers with an undeserved high or low share of viewing--which nobody is suggesting is the case--all that is required  are simple GRP level adjustments to account for supposed across the board "under statements" of viewing. 

And let's not forget that whatever numbers are being utilized, all of them vastly overstate the numbers of people who actually watch commercials. So why quibble as if a survey is presenting us with the absolute, certifiable, "truth" --down to the last viewer for every nationally available TV show. No survey has ever done that.

Sorry to see big city papers close. It happened in my city (Atlanta) at the first of the year. It is a challenging news environment with the various immediate sources on the internet and a population with a declining interest in "real news" and print. Seems the papers could do a better job in defining their market and the product the market would support. 

Thom, how do we know that Nielsen has been "under reporting"  viewing? Isn't it possible that the old system was "over reporting" viewing? How does one determine what's the exact truth--down to the last few hundred "viewers" ---for every show on national TV? 

The  main problem-----if there is a problem----is whether the new system is finding a greater share of viewing for one seller than another that can be proven bo be significantly incorrect. So far I have seen no claims about anything like that. So, no matter what the correct numbers of adults 18-49 are--for programs that haven't even been produced yet--- how is the coming upfront jeopardized? Each seller will still be credited with a certain share of audience. If the buyer and sellers agree that  the resulting 18-49 ratingis  are "under stated" by 1-2%, then simply up the figures slightly to account for that.  

Revealing the issues is different from identifying the issues, the problem is and still is that Nielsen Big Data + Panel was, is and continues to be a service that is "under construction". Issues or as I would say methodological processes have been identified by clients for over 2 years and Nielsen has taken too long to move forward. This will be another Upfront that there is too little data and time to make the most accurate estimates that allow buyer and seller to transact confidently. What is most bothersome is that Nielsen has been under reporting viewing with the introduction of Big Data in 2025.

Dave, the only way to deal with this issue is to deal directly with the seller through a true partner agency or independent contractor which insists on independent verification, "audience" data obtained by an objective third party or failing that independent audits of ad placement, whether the "audience" was real, what content was involved, etc.

Given how Trump rules his cabinet with an iron hand, does anyone believe even Noem was dumb enough to launch those commercials without checking with the white house first? 

If this is the case, we should no longer accept the NSI Viewership wheel at 2+, it should shift to 18+ immediatley. 

My reading here is that MRC is revealing an issue from Sept. 25 that yielded lower viewing estimates but has since largely been addressed to its satisfaction. I'm guessing this should be good news for viewing levels going forward. 

The main question concerns whether the "problem" is with the big data panels which supply the set usage estimates or with the much smaller people meter panel which supplies the crucial viewer-per-set factors which are used to project the viewer "demographic" estimates. From what I gleen from the MRC statement, Nielsen may have a cooperation issue with some-or many--of its 27,000 people meter homes. Their resident composition re age may have changed due to panel turnover or other factors or it's possible that some members--those in the middle age groups or certain ethnicities ---some newly recruited--are being less cooperative in pressing their buttons to indicate that they are viewing when a channel or show is selected.

While I assume that answers to these and other questions will be forthcoming, the main issue from a time buying and selling viewpoint is whether the "audience" is being correctly assigned  on a seller by seller basis. If their shares are more or less OK, artificially caused shortfalls in audience delivery can be handled by stastical adjustments between the buyers and sellers.

Very interesting, Joe. 

The problem with this kind of study, aside from questions about how respondents make their evaluations, is that it probably includes all sorts of "advertisers"---some mosly digital; others heavy into TV;some branding; others mainly direct response or sales promotional and many different product categories. Also the study, probably did not focus on the primary decision maker at most advertisers--the CEOs, for example---but took whatever it got, job function -wise--I'm only guessing on this point. So what you get is a Milligan's Stew of replies, going in many directions and it's hard to interpret the findings. 

For example, 20% of the respondents cited attribution as the most important--but these can't be national TV advertisers referring to TV can they? And if you take "media performane", "media delivery"and "audience delivery" together, to mean "audience" then this is the dominant reply, while attentiveness barely shows up as a prime concern--despite all of the buzz about this very important metric.