Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – President & CEO, ARF: Audience Measurement, in its 13th year, is one of the ARF’s most popular conferences because it offers solutions in addition to shedding light on problems. For example, at last year’s main stage, a call for “ingredient-labeling” to assess research data quality led to a partnership with the DMA and CIMM to bring it to life. We are currently at the proof of concept stage for scalable tools to accurately assess datasets in the market right now. A report will be announced by Fall.
We fall into the trap of despair thinking that there won’t be solutions in audience measurement, such as “measurement is broken.” But about 90% of viewing minutes are captured by existing systems. There is a distorted picture by focusing only on the gaps – the small percentage that is not measured. Let’s not underrate progress that has been made in cross-platform measurement. We don’t have 100% consensus on unified measurement, but there have been credible proposals (e.g., MRC, CIMM). A steady progress has been made with methodological, empirical process. If impatience leads to sharper focus and investments, it’s great, but let’s not let it lead to cynicism, lazy approaches, and despair. Instead, let’s look ahead with optimism and pragmatism.
Watch Scott’s opening remarks (ten minutes) via the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=dlJD6W4k6YM