B 8631
Measuring and Monetizing Media Audiences
Fall 2014 – A Term
Tuesday Evenings: 5:45 to 9:00 pm
Uris 331
Professor Scott McDonald
Professor David Poltrack
Background:
For the past several years, media companies have faced profound challenges to their traditional
business models. After a period of consolidation and vertical integration, large media
conglomerates found themselves in possession of the engines of both content creation and
distribution. However they also faced new threats from “long tail” competitors and from new
technologies that made the protection of intellectual property and the monetization of content
more difficult. Advertising revenues, the traditional economic foundation of the media, began
flowing into ever more diverse channels with the growth of internet-based alternatives to
traditional advertising. As competition and the supply of lower-cost communication
alternatives expanded, traditional media companies came under pricing pressures that further
tested their foundational business models.
Course Content:
The course examines the impact of these disruptive changes on the methods used to measure
and value ad-supported media audiences. It begins by reviewing the classic measurement
approaches for print, television, and internet media and describing the traditional role of
audience research in setting the commercial values for these media. It continues by
considering the technology-driven transformations of those businesses – the digitalization of all
media, the proliferation of distribution options, the rise of search and of social media, the
disintermediating effects of ad networks and of behavioral targeting technologies. Each of
these has induced changes in consumer behavior and required significant adjustments in the
ways that media are measured and valued – changes that are at the core of this course’s focus.
Finally, the course discusses the ways in which content-based media companies are responding
to the challenges by trying to diversify their revenue streams, monetize their content assets in
new ways, and generate new media metrics appropriate to the new economic requirements.
The course also reviews the ways in which research is used by media companies to select
content for development and to hedge risk – particularly in the development of television pilots
for each new season.
The course is particularly relevant for students who intend to work in ad-supported media or in
the fields of advertising or market research.
Requirements and Grading:
Students must attend class and participate in discussions. Grades will be assigned based on the
following:
 50% Final Exam (Type C, in class, short answer, no notes, individual)
 25% Class Attendance and Participation
 25% Weekly Assignments (Type B, one-page answers to a weekly question, individual,
pass-fail)
Readings:
 Most readings are in digital format and will be available on CANVAS. Students should
read the weekly articles associated with each class prior to the class meeting
 In addition, students are expected to read Philip M. Napoli’s book, Audience Evolution:
New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences (Columbia University
Press, 2011) available through the campus bookstore or through online channels.
The Professors:
 David Poltrack is the Chief Research Officer at CBS and the President of CBS Vision
 Scott McDonald is the Senior Vice President for Research & Insights at Condé Nast
Schedule of Classes:
Class Session #1: September 2, 2014

Part 1: Classical Media Model and Its Discontents (McDonald)
o Course introduction, overview, scope
o The challenges to advertising-based content-focused media
 Technological challenges
 Audience challenges
 Measurement challenges
o Media audience measurement and its traditional role in media economies
 Ecosystem for negotiating the metrics
 Role of industry organizations
o The evolving ARF Model of Media Value

Part 2: Measuring and Monetizing Television Audiences (Poltrack)
o Classic TV Measurement: Nielsen panels, diaries, and meters. Basic terminology
of television audience measurement. Measurement adaptation to
fragmentation of TV programming market, evolving audience behavior.

Take-home assignment #1

Reading related to this session:
o Advertising Research Foundation. Making Better Media Decisions (The New ARF
Model). July 2001.
o Online Publisher’s Association. “A Day in the Life: An Ethnographic Study of
Media Consumption”. OPA & Ball State University. July 2006
o Horst Stipp. “Measuring Media Usage Behavior: Improving the Quality of
Research and Reports About Consumers’ Use of Media”. Advertising Research
Foundation. 2013.
Class Session #2: September 9, 2014

Part 1: Measurement & the Structure of the TV Marketplace (Poltrack)
o Measurement needs of the traditional TV market structure: broadcast, cable,
syndication
o Role of new distribution channels in evolving structure of television and impact
on measurement requirements
o Nielsen adapts to channel proliferation: LPM, commercial audience ratings, DVR
ratings, C3, set-top box integration, internet protocols for streaming video
delivery

Part 2: Measurement in the Print Media Ecosystem (McDonald)
o Classic measurement and the structure of print media business
 Rate bases & audited circulation
 Audience-based currencies: MRI
 Specialized studies of narrow audiences
o Internet impact on publisher economics and measurement requirements
 Magazine & newspaper websites
 Digital editions/apps and measurement of mobile media
o Emerging methods of measuring and valuing print media audiences:
 Single-source approaches
 Fusion methods and hybrids
 Reconciling passive measures with recall methods
o Monetizing content and monetizing audiences

Take-home assignment #2

Reading related to this session:
o Magazine Publishers Association. Magazine Media Factbook 2013/14.
o Mediamark Research. Methodology of the MRI Media Study. www.gfkmri.com
o Scott McDonald. “Are Young People Abandoning Magazines? A Cohort Analysis”
WRRS 13. Vienna. October 2007 and update of May 2012 “Do Young People
Read Magazines?”
o Nielsen. Television Audience 2013.
Class Session #3: September 16, 2014

Measuring and Monetizing Website Audiences (McDonald)
o Ecosystem of display advertising (vs. search, e-commerce, other sectors)
o Fundamental methodological problems with website measurement
o User-centric vs. server-centric approaches
o Hybrid solutions & unified measurement
o The shift to viewable impressions
o Monetizing digital content: website economics for content publishers
o Paywalls and content meters
o User-generated content
o Mobile platforms, tablets and e-Readers
o Subscription models
o Social media and the disaggregation of content

Take-home assignment #3

Readings related to this session:
o Scott McDonald. “The Long Tail and Its Implications for Media Audience
Measurement”. Journal of Advertising Research 48:3. September 2008
o Scott McDonald and James Collins. “Internet Site Measurement
Developments”. Proceedings of the Worldwide Readership Research
Symposium. Vienna. October 2007.
o Stephanie Fiosi, Gian Fulgoni, Andrea Vollman. “If an Advertisement
Runs Online and No One Sees It, Is It Still an Ad? Empirical
Generalizations in Digital Advertising”. Journal of Advertising Research.
Special Issue. 53:2. June 2013.
Class Session #4: September 23, 2014

Part 1:
o
o
o
Data Integration in Future TV audience measurement (Poltrack)
Set top box data integration,
Over the top: I/P protocols for streaming video
Monetizing video assets through outlets like Hulu, Netflix

Part 2:
o
o
o
o
o
o

Take-home Assignment #4

Suggested readings:
o Glenn Enoch & Kelly Johnson. “Cracking the Cross-Media Code: How to Use
Single-Source Measures to Examine Media Cannibalization and Convergence”.
Journal of Advertising Research 50:2. June 2010.
o Dan Zigmond and Horst Stipp. “Assessing a New Advertising Effect:
Measurement of the Impact of Television Commercials on Internet Search
Queries”. Journal of Advertising Research 50:2. June 2010.
o Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Q32012 and Q12013
o Mike Hess and Pete Doe. “The Marketer’s Dilemma: Focusing on a Target or a
Demographic? The Utility of Data Integration Techniques”. Journal of
Advertising Research. Special Issue. 53:2. June 2013.
o Amit Seth & Dave Morgan. “The Data-Driven Future of Video Advertising”.
February 2014.
Cross-Platform Media Usage and Its Measurement (McDonald)
Simultaneous media use in the attention economy: distraction or accelerator?
Research on social media’s relationship to traditional media
Approaches to measurement of total brand footprint
Approaches to estimation of cross-platform reach & frequency
Single source vs. fusion
Cross-platform planning vs. cross-platform ROI assessment
Class Session #5: September 30, 2014

Part 1: Beyond Exposures: What is the value of media engagement? (McDonald)
o Measures of media engagement as proxies for advertising receptivity: print,
online, TV
o Media engagement vs. ad engagement: measures of ad recall/action
o The limits of clickthrough rates
o The value of media context vs. the value of ad targeting
o Consumer ad avoidance, banner blindness
o Product placement and product integration
o Native advertising
o Commercial attempts to measure engagement

Part 2: Monetizing TV content: research for media content selection and development:
Television (Poltrack)
o Television program testing, handicapping the new season, structure of the
upfront and scatter markets
o The new TV season revisited: predictions vs. outcomes
o Impact of social media, multi-tasking and second-screen engagement on
television viewing

Take-home Assignment #5

Suggested reading:
o “Measures of Engagement” Volumes 1 and 2. Joe Plummer, Bill Cook, Don
Diforio, Inna Sokolanskaya, Maria Ovchinnikova. ARF White Paper. June 2006.
o Jennifer Taylor, Rachel Kennedy, Colin McDonald, Laurent Larguinat, Yassine El
Ourzazi, Nassim Haddad. “Is the Multi-Platform Whole More Powerful Than Its
Separate Parts? Measuring the Sales Effect of Cross-Media Advertising”. Journal
of Advertising Research. Special Issue. 53:2. June 2013.
Class Session #6: October 7, 2014

Part 1:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Who Gets the Credit? Attribution Analysis and ROI (Poltrack)
Marketing mix models (and their variants)
Alternative formulations of the purchase funnel
A/B Tests, Starch, Dynamic Logic
Problems in linear media mix models & alternative solutions
Nielsen’s OCR (Online Campaign Ratings) Model
Clickthrough vs. CPM vs. CPA
Big data approaches to advertising impact analysis

Part 2:
o
o
o
o
o
Seeking Order in the Chaos of Disrupted Industries (McDonald)
The ARF media model revisited
Capturing evolving audience behavior
Managing technological change
Scorecard on the measurement and monetization of media audiences as of 2013
Outlook for the future of ad-based content-focused media

Suggested reading:
o Sequent Partners. “Current State of Market Mix Models”. Report to Council on
Research Excellence. May 2013.
Other readings worth a look:
Baron, Roger and Jack Scissors. Advertising Media Planning, Seventh Edition. McGraw-Hill.
2010.
Briggs, Rex and Greg Stuart. What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee
Yours Succeeds. Chicago: Kaplan Publishing, 2006.
Green, Andrew. From Prime Time to My Time: Audience Measurement in the Digital Age.
London: WARC. 2010.
Hardy, Hugh H., ed. The Politz Papers: Science and Truth in Marketing Research. American
Marketing Association, 1990.
Jones, John Philip. The Advertising Business: Operations, Creativity, Media Planning, Integrated
Communications. Sage Publications. 1999.
Levy, Stephen. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives. Simon &
Schuster. 2011.
Napoli, Philip M. Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace. New
York: Columbia University Press. 2003.
Webster, James G. and Lawrence W. Lichty. Ratings Analysis: Theory and Practice. Hillsdale,
NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates. 1991.