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Merrill Lynch: Commercial Ratings Fears ‘Overblown’

Fears from the networks that commercial ratings will substantially hurt network revenues may be mostly unfounded.

According to a report from Merrill Lynch’s Jessica Reif Cohen, such concerns are “overblown.” She believes that the commercial ratings data will not show as precipitous a drop-off in viewership during ad breaks as many believe, writes MediaPost.

Commercial ratings could, in fact, benefit networks if advertisers become willing to pay a premium to learn how many people are truly watching their ads. In the meantime, the “increased accountability inherent in commercial ratings could help offset some of the concern about what advertisers are actually getting when they purchase television advertising,” wrote Reif Cohen in the report.

While commercial ratings will likely not be used as currency in the upfront this May, the issue of live ratings versus ratings that incorporate DVR playback is one that both buyers and sellers are eager to resolve before that time.

Cohen believes it is possible the DVR playback issue could resolve itself by buyers and sellers agreeing to use the live-plus-same-day metric - advertisers pay for all viewing that occurs in the 24 hours after the broadcast window. When commercial minutes that measure how many people actually view ads when watching via DVRs become available, DVR data will no longer be an issue.

Reif Cohen’s report was based on opinions expressed during panels held by Merrill Lynch with panelists such as David Poltrack, executive vp-research and planning for CBS, Bill Cella, vp at Draft FCB and David Verklin, CEO, Carat Americas.