Arbitron, comScore to launch cross-platform measurement with ESPN

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ArbitronThe two ratings/measurement companies will develop the first-ever five-platform measurement initiative that would provide a view of changing consumption of video, audio and display content across radio, television, PCs, smartphones and tablets. ESPN will collaborate on the design of this initiative as its charter client.


This initiative would provide persons-level insights by integrating the complementary resources of both companies—the census and panel-based PC, mobile and TV set-top box measurement capabilities of comScore along with enhanced, single-source, multiplatform measurement capabilities of the Arbitron PPM technology.

Multiplatform measurement for ESPN will include video, audio and display content via television (both in-home and out-of-home), online and mobile video, PC web, mobile web, apps, tablets, digital audio and terrestrial radio.

Artie Bulgrin, ESPN SVP/Research and Analytics, said that as a member of CIMM, they were impressed by the multiplatform tests conducted by Arbitron and comScore this past year: “Their unique, complementary capabilities form a strong foundation to build a sustainable multiplatform measurement model with scale–a model that can serve the needs of ESPN today and the industry going forward. Our role is to get things started.”

ESPN, comScore and Arbitron are planning a series of events on October 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the upcoming Advertising Week in New York to introduce details to the industry.

This initiative lays the foundation for a national-scale, continuously operating, syndicated cross-platform measurement solution for the media and marketing industries. The goal is to produce common metrics across all platforms at the scale and granularity required by both content providers and advertisers, and to demonstrate the audience reach and duplication of each media platform.

Current plans are to develop a service offering that would be available to all media companies, advertisers and advertising agencies that wish to understand and measure the audience size, composition and impact of media content and marketing efforts as listened to and viewed across multiple platforms.

Said Manish Bhatia, EVP/New Product Innovation, Arbitron: “ESPN initiated this effort and helped bring Arbitron and comScore together with the goal of advancing cross-platform research from a special project to a standing industry-wide practice. This solution blends the depth of insights that comes from census-based data with the unduplicated persons-level information across platforms that comes from a single-source panel–it’s an ideal marriage of the available data sources.”