The battle for how to best count viewers for broadcast television has transferred to the Internet as the current situation has no way of guaranteeing accuracy.
With people increasingly turning to the Internet to consume professional content, advertisers are following right behind; the problem is there are no standards in place to guide the pricing.
The three basic ways of counting online video views now are by starts of shows, episodes or streams.
With the networks cutting up their episodes into several streams to make it easier to deliver to viewers and insert ads, the result is the opportunity for the system to be abused by manipulating the number of people watching.
In response to the confusion in the marketplace, the Internet Advertising Bureau is assembling a team to create guidelines for counting online video audiences. The IAB is looking to issue guidelines sometime within the next 12 months - hopefully sooner. The "Bureau" said this shouldn't be a difficult problem to fix.
"The industry would benefit from standardization in terms of reporting because it's harder to move forward when there is confusion," said Tracey Scheppach, senior VP and video innovation director at media-buying agency Starcom USA.
This is a good move at this stage of online professional video growth. It's just starting to take off, and if this isn't taking care of - even if it's not that hard to do - it would definitely slow down the online video ad model.
Advertisers have shown through the changes resulting from DVR usage on broadcast television that they're not simply going to throw their money around without more accurate numbers. Standardization of counting is one of the pieces of the puzzle needed to help propel the market forward.
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