NBC's new metric
NBC.com has become such an integral part of a show's success that the network will include streaming video numbers in its Total Audience Measurement (TAM) metric for this year's upfront, which research head Alan Wurtzel said will most accurately determine the amount of time viewers spend with NBC programming online and on TV.
A recent poll found 11% of "Heroes" watchers tuned into the show on both platforms, with 60% of those fans streaming the program online within 24 hours of the initial broadcast. But despite increased accuracy in ratings, NBC knows demographic statistics about its online audience only anecdotally, said Jeff Gaspin, president of NBC Universal cable entertainment and digital content.
NBC's joint venture with News Corp., however, should bring it closer to reaching a more qualitative 18-to-34 online demo, with AOL recently stepping in to handle ad-sales duty for the still-unnamed project. Tim Hanlon, senior VP-ventures at Publicis Groupe's Denuo, said the next step for all networks is to take a more "distribution-neutral" approach to getting their content in front of consumers. "To think you can completely control distribution in a closed environment is a folly in this age," he said. "If they don't do it right, they're effectively going to get laughed out of the room by the audiences out there."
