TV broadcasters’ paths to growth are gated by the ability to develop trusted and accurate measurement systems that clearly establish the size and attributes of the audiences delivered across linear and digital platforms. Based on BIA/Kelsey’s data partnerships with comScore and Share Rocket and using our own BIA ADVantage market intelligence data platform, we have published the report, Sizing the Opportunity for Measuring & Monetizing Local TV Audiences that offers a unique perspective on the monetization and revenue scaling opportunities for local TV. We do this by diving into cases studies of three markets with different characteristics: Los Angeles, CA; Kansas City, KS-MO and Madison, WI.
Local TV broadcasters seeking revenue growth in the digital domain are achieving only about 5% of their total revenue mix from digital. However, by directly monetizing the audiences they create on third-party distribution platforms such as Facebook can double that digital component to the revenue mix with new incremental revenue. Working with Share Rocket, we size the opportunity for monetizing local TV stations’ earned audiences just with Facebook Native and Facebook LIVE video to be $67.1 million for Los Angeles, CA; $10.7 million for Kansas City, KS-MO and $2.35 million for Madison, WI.
An essential point to see here is that local TV operators have a path to doubling their digital revenue growth simply by monetizing the audiences they already have created on Facebook.
From the advertisers’ perspective, the social audience segments local TV stations create with their premium video product while highly valuable are not currently exposed to them so they don’t even have the chance to buy this inventory to hit their campaign goals.
Given the trendline for local TV’s revenue mix as heavily dependent on monetizing local broadcast audiences, about 5% of their total revenue, the accuracy of audience measurement is critical. For example, each rating point is worth $12.8 million in Los Angeles, CA; $1.12 million in Kansas City, KS-MO and $496,350 in Madison, WI.
This means for example that in Los Angeles if a ratings estimate is off by just half a point, $6.4 million could be misspent by advertisers.
Accurate measurement, the ability to add “big data” to audience estimates to develop data-driven audience and consumer segment matches and monetizing social audiences already created are critical growth paths.
Download the full report here.
