| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Broadcast Nets Cheat Nielsen Ratings System | | The broadcast networks have found that misspelling show names can fool Nielsen's automated ratings system into mis-categorizing lower-rated shows. That results in those particular broadcasts not being included among a show's season-long ratings numbers. A Wall Street Journal report finds NBC has played the misspelled card 14 times this season, while CBS has done it 12 times and ABC has done it 7 times. All those instances were for their evening news broadcasts. NBC misspelled its Memorial Day weekend Friday evening news broadcasts as "NBC Nitely News" so its low ratings were not included in the rest of the week's NBC Nightly News ratings. ABC has also mislabeled World News Tonight as "Wrld News Tonite" on low-rated days, while CBS has spelled CBS Evening News as "CBS Evening Nws." NBC calls it a "standard industry practice," explaining that the network broadcasts are "retitled when there are pre-emptions and inconsistencies or irregularities in schedule, which can include holidays weekends and special sporting events." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The practice presents a false ratings picture to advertisers and Nielsen has seemingly looked the other way. Distorted ratings are not something marketers or the agencies pay to receive. Billie Gold, director of programming at media agency Dentsu's Amplifi unit, says, "Networks never used to do this," but adds now it has become the norm. They only way to stop it is for vigilant marketers and their agencies to cry foul. You can't depend on the three broadcast networks to rat each other out because they are all doing it. | | A Take: WSJ | | | | #2 Twitter Has a Bot Problem | | One agency executive tells Ad Age that between 10% and 20% of user engagement on Twitter is generated by bots. However Twitter opened itself up to third-party measurement which it says found its audience was 99% human. But advertisers remain skeptical that there are many accounts with profiles missing photos, missing followers, not tweeting, and other signs that they could be bots. Augustine Fou, a cybersecurity and ad fraud researcher says, "When there's no picture, no tweets and they're just retweeting. What would you call that if not a fake account." While Twitter has been dismissive of bot trouble, Pixelate, another outside measurement firm, says Twitter has a bigger bot problem than its rival social media platforms. Pixelate says Twitter bots account for up to 17% of traffic coming from Twitter to outside websites measured by Pixelate in June. Facebook saw only 3% of its traffic coming from bots, Instagram saw 4% and Pinterest up to 9%. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: If Twitter doesn't remedy the problem or the perception of the problem, it could lose advertisers. "We simply want a reliable way to measure what is real," says one agency exec. "They need to create a reliable system to detect the difference between humans and bots, because no brand wants to pay for that impression or engagement." | A Take: Ad Age
| | | | #3 WPP Consolidation Continues | | The agency holding company is continuing its consolidation efforts with the latest being a merger of shopper specialist agency Possible being folded into digital and creative marketing agency Wunderman. In May WPP announced it was merging GroupM media agency Maxus into one of its other GroupM media agencies MEC. And in June, GroupM agency Mindshare absorbed WPP creative agency Ogilvy's Neo. In the latest instance, Possible global CEO Shane Atchison will now report to Wunderman global CEO Mark Reed. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Little by little the large agency holding companies are beginning to streamline to create a smaller number of more powerful agencies and to save money that can be reinvested in data gathering and other technologies. Last spring another holding company giant, Publicis revamped its media agency structure, breaking up Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia Group into just four agencies – Starcom, Zenith, Mediavest/Spark and Optimedia Blue 449. | A Take: WSJ | MediaPost | Adweek
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| | 34 | | Percentage of internet users worldwide who say they find it difficult to disconnect and or take a break from using tech devices, according to a survey by GfK. Those finding it hardest to disconnect are the youngest – ages 15-19 – with 44% saying it's difficult. Among those ages 20-29, 41% say it's difficult to disconnect. Among those 30-39, it's 38%; among those 40-49, it's 29%; among those 50-59, it's 23%; and among those 60-plus, it's just 15%. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | CBS Wins With 'Big Brother' | by Michael Malone
CBS was the top scorer among broadcasters Wednesday, as Big Brother led the network to a 1.0 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 4 share. Next up were Fox and NBC at 0.7/3.
Big Brother was up 6% over its premiere, at 1.8. Two Criminal Minds repeats followed.
Fox had repeats of MasterChef and The F Word With Gordon Ramsay.
NBC aired Little Big Shots: Forever Young, which was up 11% at 1.0, then The Carmichael Show at a flat 0.7. A Carmichael Show repeat and This Is Us encore got NBC through to the end of prime. The Carmichael Show won't be back for season four, with the remainder of season three airing this summer.
ABC had repeated comedies, then gamer To Tell the Truth at a level 0.6, en route to a 0.6/3.
Repeats on The CW produced a 0.2/1. Among Spanish-language networks, Telemundo, with El Señor de los Cielos, did a 0.6/2, while Univision was at 0.5/2.
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| | • RAMON PINEDA was named senior VP and regional general manager overseeing the Southeastern U.S. and Puerto Rico stations of Univision Communications. ROBERTO YANEZ was appointed senior VP and general manager of Univision New York, while ALEJANDRA SANTAMARIA was named VP, general manager and director of sales of Univision Arizona. Pineda will oversee stations in Atlanta, Raleigh, Philadelphia and Cleveland, in addition to Puerto Rico. | |
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