Local TV Measurement Quality is Low (Surprise!)

Ad Age reports that Group M CEO Irwin Gotlieb called local TV's measurement system the "worst media measurement (systems) that exists in the business".

He went further and said that "local broadcast is competing with digital media. Local broadcast will itself be digital media in only a few short years. And yet, we're still dealing with diary measurement? It just doesn't belong there."

Let me suggest that local TV has adapted well to not being measured! Much of their advertising comes from local advertisers who have either:

• crude, but effective, ways of measuring ads, like how many people walked into the auto showroom on Saturday morning, or
• are not sophisticated enough to measure effectiveness, as they replay the ad of themselves to friends and family.

Much of Local TV is losing the quality advertiser, who demands measurement, and is rapidly moving advertising dollars to media that offers clarity, transparency and better feedback loops. So the local TV ad sales team hunt the yellow page, flyer , radio and billboard advertisers, telling they can get a better bang for their buck through TV. The "cloud of war" obfuscates the activity and outcomes, but, short of offering better measurement, this is the way it is.