NBC To Reduce Ad Load, Lessen Reliance On Traditional Measurements

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

NBCUniversal plans further commercial load cuts and less reliance on “legacy” measurement.
“Our industry faces an exciting inflection point, we must go even further,” says Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising and client partnerships, NBCUniversal, in an end-of-year memo sent to staffers.

In March, NBC said it would reduce its prime-time commercial ad loads by 10% across its networks and its average length of commercial breaks by 20%.

“People love our premium content and trust our family of networks. We must honor their experience as we design better ways to engage with brands. That’s why we’ll continue to reduce time and clutter and expand Prime Pods across the portfolio.”

This season, NBC started one-minute Prime Pods, which began airing in the 50 top shows on NBCU’s broadcast and cable networks this season.

Also, Yaccarino says: “We’re going to lessen our reliance on legacy measurement. Instead, we’ll continue to invest in measurement that focuses on audiences and business outcomes, including scaling CFlight across our entire portfolio.”

CFlight was introduced last season. It expands NBC’s guarantees in covering advertisers’ entire campaigns on its platforms -- beyond standard industry metrics of C3 or C7, the average minute commercial ratings plus three or seven days of time-shifted viewing.

NBCU will also concentrate on expanding efforts around more automated buying offerings. In addition, it will focus more on “safety” -- especially on digital platforms, where there is high concern over fraud.

NBC will continue to build advertiser platforms for “mass reach and targeted audiences,” part of its effort in starting ROI programs for direct-to-consumer businesses.