NBCUniversal’s 42 NBC/Telemundo stations and seven regional sports networks are shifting to all impressions-based buying for all local advertising campaigns.
The change officially goes into effect on April 1, 2021 but the stations announced their intentions to move to impressions in September 2019 to grant clients and agencies who were not trading on impressions additional time to transition.
With the close of the transition period at the end of the first quarter, all NBCUniversal's owned TV stations and regional sports networks will be measured using CPMs only.
"Our local businesses were among the first to put a stake in the ground around the move to impressions-based ad buys more than a year ago, giving local marketers a better currency for measurement," said Frank Comerford, chief revenue officer at NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, in a statement. "Utilizing impressions puts local TV on a level playing field with digital, since advertisers will no longer need to convert ratings to impressions in order to evaluate an overall ad buy. As always, our teams are ready to work hand-in-hand with local advertisers to deliver successful campaigns across all DMAs."
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NBCUniversal said the move to 100% impressions, instead of traditional ratings points, will better allow marketers to plan across platforms and screens, and will more accurately show increases in viewers with the addition of broadband-only (BBO) households. Nielsen will introduce BBO homes into local market samples beginning on April 1.
"Moving to impressions brings the added benefit of eliminating zero cell quarter-hours, which had previously resulted in a reduction in inventory," said Michael Chico, executive vice president of NBC & Telemundo Owned Television Station Sales, in a statement. "Ratings, unlike impressions, are held to Nielsen’s minimum reporting standard thresholds. Ratings that do not meet these minimums are reported as zero viewership, while impressions are reported when viewing occurs in all quarter hours, effectively adding back anywhere from 5-20% of viewers depending on the daypart. This provides additional inventory for agencies and clients to reach their impressions goals on buys.”
In December, NBCUniversal announced that it would expand its available digital inventory, addressable products and advanced targeting to local marketers.