There is increasing hostility between the internet audience measurement rivals Comscore and Nielsen. As a Comscore subscriber Sigint received an email from their top brass to ‘set the record straight’ following a press release from Nielsen boasting about the size of their own measurement panel.
Clearly on the offensive, Nielsen had claimed to have the largest and most representative online measurement panel in the world. Comscore, now out-flanked, hit back hard saying that Nielsen’s claim was ‘factually untrue’. In other words a lie (this is about as good as it gets in the world of media research believe me). We eagerly await Nielsen’s next move.
But does any of this really matter outside of the PR departments within each camp? Sample size is an issue for any type of research but for gold standard currency data it’s generally accepted that while it would be nice to accurately report everything, in reality you don’t need to. The vast majority of ‘currency’ data users (who also fund the measurement systems) are only interested in the audiences to the more established channels and titles – the bottom of the long tail is simply classified as ‘other’. It makes it hard for new entrants, but no subscriber is going to double or triple their contribution just to measure the tiniest niches in the market.
In the US Comscore claim to report on 70,000 sites monthly, in comparison to the measly 30,000 that Nielsen now covers. But do we really need to know the audience profile to internet site number 70,000? Probably not. What we are really seeing are tactical exchanges of fire in the continuing battle for domination of the online audience measurement world. Meanwhile subscribers hold out for a ceasefire and maybe even the unthinkable, a single, better and cheaper measurement provider.
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This issue is further muddied by Nielsen potentially picking up the contract to run UKOM (JICIMS as was). If that initiative succeeds and the media industry gets behind it, Comscore are looking down the barrel of a lot of subscribers jumping ship to take UKOM - after all, why does a buyer of research need two currencies for one medium, especially if one is endorsed by the IPA and ISBA as UKOM is puportedly going to be?
ReplyDeleteThis might well be the start of Comscore getting aggressive about Nielsen's position in the market. Indeed, I'd expect a fairly bitter (by media research standards) war of words over the short to medium term.
I guess the only upside of two suppliers is that they compete on price and quality. If there is going to be a winner they do need to be regulated by a JIC of some sort.
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