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Variety

GroupM Seeks to Change How Advertisers Pay for TV

Dec 1, 2016  •  Post A Comment

The influential media buyer GroupM, which administers the spending of about $30 billion from blue-chip marketers such as Unilever and Anheuser-Busch InBev, wants to change the way the TV ad business works, according to a report by Brian Steinberg in Variety.

Under new President Lyle Schwartz — described by Steinberg as Madison Avenue’s “new sheriff” — GroupM is talking about pushing for better measurement of TV viewing across all screens.

In his first interview since becoming GroupM’s chief investment officer in November, Schwartz told the publication: “Maybe 2017 is the year when we can buy programs across the devices. I can tell you the technological capability could be available for next year’s upfront.”

“If Schwartz can persuade the nation’s big media companies to agree on a common measurement framework to tally viewers across TV, digital and mobile, the move could be a huge benefit to networks struggling with declining linear ratings,” Steinberg notes.

Added Schwartz: “I’m hoping that we move to a much more holistic measure of audience, so that the audience will actually be coming back, and be counted. I don’t think the audience ever really went away from viewing this content. I think that our ability to measure it, aggregate it and monetize it has been the leading problem. I am hopeful that this year as an industry we can attack what needs to be done, and work on a product that is to the benefit of all involved.”

We encourage readers to click on the link above to Variety to read Steinberg’s full report.

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