电视已死？

    其次，哈斯克今年4月在纽约大学（New York University）曾表示，尼尔森公司耗时4年建立的一种新的视频收视率衡量标准现在已经进入收尾阶段。这是一种可以跨媒体、跨设备衡量观众的数量规模和参与程度的毛收视率（GRP）标准。以往各大电视公司更容易认同这种收视率标准以建立某种第三方的确认机制。但是现在，靠广告和娱乐节目生存的老牌电视公司已经受到了来自科技行业的新进者的挑战。现在，毛收视率（GRP）的计算与谷歌、奈飞（Netflix）和苹果（Apple）这类公司同样利益攸关。尤其是凭借全球热门视频网站YouTube，谷歌在这个问题上有相当大的利害关系。

    谷歌的创始人团队热爱数据，藐视一些无法衡量的东西。他们之所以研究出付费搜索广告的机制，很大程度上就是由于拉里•佩奇和谢尔盖•布林绝对不会允许Google.com的网站上出现一张横幅广告。这么敏感的一群人怎么可能容忍传统收视率在统计上的不严密，于是冲突就产生了。谷歌、Facebook乃至整个互联网产业都坚决认为，网友们看过的每一个视频都应该被计算到收视率里，从而挑战了传统电视的效果。

    从传统上看，尼尔森公司最重要的客户就是各大电视公司与他们的广告主。尼尔森公司要想重新站稳脚跟，就需要一个公认的GRP标准来维持它在衡量全球视频收视率方面的主导地位。尼尔森公司服务的是一个市值上万亿美元的巨大市场，为了取得这个市场上的利益相关方的共识，尼尔森已经花了好几年的时间进行产品开发和外交公关。

    无数批评人士一直指责尼尔森公司过于依赖来自各大电视网的费用，因此他们的收视率不可信。奥雷塔今年二月来纽约大学在我的课上做主题为“互联网媒体的历史”的客座讲座时，着意强调了他对尼尔森收视率的正当性的关注，而且他还拿尼尔森公司同样具有高度争议性的DVR收视率指标作为尼尔森安于在电视行业里挣钱的另一个例子。

    两个月后，我问哈斯克对奥雷塔的观察有什么看法，他的回答好像是在打太极。他说，虽然很多人可能不想相信尼尔森公司，但广告主们对尼尔森公司的信任程度超过了任何一家传媒公司。

    最后，他表示，广告市场仍然需要一名“裁判员”，也就是衡量服务。投资人们普遍相信穆迪或标准普尔的债务评级，美国环保署（EPA）对汽车燃油功率的衡量结果也受到大家认同。哈斯克还表示，尼尔森公司对一个广告是在NBC上还是Twitter上、是在有线电视上还是在移动媒体上播放并没有既定的偏好和利益，尼尔森公司只想衡量这些视频节目和视频广告是否有人收看，收看的人是谁。

    尼尔森的变革对电视行业的影响是很大的。尼尔森公司已经重新设计了GRP的计算规则，而这个标准曾经是电视市场称霸媒体界的资本之一。如果电视继续通过具有高度沉浸感的广告聚拢大量观众的话，那么投到《海军罪案调查处》（NCIS）、《美国好声音》（The Voice）以及其它众多电视节目上的钱就仍然难以流向别的地方。

    但是通过与一系列数据供应商的合作，尼尔森给人的感觉和它的行动越来越像一家互联网公司，而且它衡量的精确性也在显著提高。如今，这家公司正准备在持续演化的视频传播环境下，凭借一个公认的GRP标准，去衡量成百上千万台设备背后的几十亿观众的行为。

    如今的媒体环境呈指数级碎片化，看电视的观众群有可能会日益萎缩。（事实上，几十年来看电视的人数一直减少。）企业的市场部门要想证明一次性预付的广告采购开支能产生预期效益很不容易。因为随着数码设备变的五花八门，视频传播渠道越来越多，这些视频内容被观众看到的时间也将是有先有后，而不像前互联网时代，大家都在同一时间看到电视的内容。

    科技投资人马克•安德里森曾写道：“软件正在吞噬世界。”随着视频内容行业发展到一个临界点，软件现在也要开始吃掉电视广告了。消费者可以在数码设备上通过几百万个渠道看视频。尼尔森必须衡量每一股数据流，而且广告主们最终也会获得他们真正想要的东西。将来，广告将可以使用算法、数据和外币来购买。

    而梅尔•卡马金的那种传奇的广告销售技巧，终将像分类广告和大家书架上的CD一样，成为明日黄花。（财富中文网）

    本文作者艾伦•科恩是Yashi公司的营销总监。Yashi是一家位于新泽西州的广告科技公司。同时，他也是纽约大学的兼职教授，主讲互联网媒体史。

    译者：朴成奎

    Second, according to Hasker in an April talk at New York University, Nielsen is nearing the conclusion of a four-year odyssey to set measurement standards for video -- a kind of Gross Rating Point (GRP) across all media and devices that measures the size and engagement of the viewing audience. In the past, television networks have more easily agreed to standards in order to create third-party validation mechanisms. But the old boy networks that exist on Madison and Vine have been disrupted by entrants from the technology sector. Now Google, Netflix (NFLX), Apple (AAPL), and others have a stake in how video GRP will be calculated. Because of YouTube, Google has a particularly substantial interest in this debate.

    Google's founders love data and despise the unmeasurable. Paid search came about largely because Larry Page and Sergey Brin simply would not allow banner advertising on Google.com. Compare that sensibility with the imprecision of traditional media measurement and conflicts arise. Google, Facebook, and the Internet industry overall continuously challenge the efficacy of traditional television by insisting that individual streams and video views be watched to be counted.

    Historically, Nielsen's most important customers have been television networks and their advertisers. For Nielsen to stay relevant, it needs a common GRP standard to maintain its dominance in measuring video across the globe. Reaching consensus among stakeholders with trillions of dollars in market value has taken years of product development and diplomacy by the ratings firm.

    Countless critics of Nielsen long have believed the company was so dependent on network television fees that their measurements could not be trusted. In Ken Auletta's guest appearance February in my class at NYU, "The History of Internet Media," he expressed significant concerns about Nielsen's legitimacy, citing the company's highly controversial DVR ratings as another example of the company's coziness with the television industry.

    Two months later, I asked Hasker about Auletta's observation, and he responded as if he were giving a stump speech. However many people may not want to believe in Nielsen, he argued, advertisers trust his company more than they do any individual media company's numbers.

    In the end, he maintains that the advertising marketplace needs a "referee" or measurement service. Investors rely on Moody's or Standard& Poor's to rate debt. The EPA measures the fuel efficiency of automobiles. Hasker claims that Nielsen has no vested interest whether an ad runs on NBC or Twitter -- cable or mobile. The company wants to measure whether programming and advertising are watched and by whom.

    The implications for the television industry are massive. Nielsen has reinvented the GRP, a standard that has been the source of much of the television market's hegemony in media. If television continues to aggregate huge audiences with highly immersive advertising units, then it will remain difficult to unlock the enormous flow of dollars that support NCIS, The Voice, and dozens of other shows on the evening television schedule.

    But in partnering with an array of digital data providers, Nielsen looks, feels, and acts more and more like an Internet company that measures with substantially increased precision. The company is preparing to measure the behavior of billions of people across millions of devices within a continuously evolving distribution environment with one common GRP standard.

    In this exponentially fractured media landscape, television audiences will likely get smaller. (They have been for decades.) Marketers will struggle to justify their upfront advertising purchases because content will be consumed at time-shifted moments using a panoply of devices and distribution services.

    Tech investor Marc Andreessen once wrote, "Software is eating the world." Software will now eat television advertising as the video content industry reaches a programmatic tipping point. Consumers watch on digital devices across millions of channels. Nielsen will measure every stream, and advertisers will finally receive exactly what they order. Advertising will be bought using algorithms, data, and exchanges.

    The amazing Mel Karmazin's Houdini-like tricks are as doomed as the classified ads you once perused or the CDs collecting dust on your shelf.

    Aaron Cohen is chief marketing officer of Yashi, a New Jersey-based adtech company. He is also an adjunct professor at NYU, teaching the history of Internet media.