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Maybe Nielsen Is The Alternative Currency
00:53:09
The alternative currency bucket could use a rebrand. That referential and somewhat deferential phraseology – a reference to Nielsen – drives Peter Liguori, VideoAmp’s executive chairman, a little nuts. It stems, he argues, from the...
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- [00:00]
Peter Liguori
Foreign.
- [00:13]
Allison Schiff
Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you. I'm Allison Schiff, the managing editor of Ad Exchanger, and this is AdExchanger Talks, the podcast where we nerd out like it's our business because it is our business. My guest this week is Peter Liguori, executive chairman of alternative currency provider Videoamp. He took the job in January 2024 in the midst of a restructuring which involved 20% layoffs. He's been steering the Good Chip Video amp ever since, including into what was a very interesting year for the upfronts. Because 2025 is the first year that Nielsen offered its Big Data plus panel product as a recognized currency, and it was not without its hiccups. We'll get Peter's completely unvarnished opinions on Nielsen, which he came to not just as a man helming a company with a product to sell, but as a former broadcast executive who has a lot of experience dealing with Nielsen. Among other things, Peter is the former president and CEO of FX Networks and the former chairman of entertainment for the Fox Broadcasting Company. But before we get into it, allow me a quick plug. We just finished a super fun Programmatic I O in Las Vegas in May and we're already in planning mode for Programmatic IO New York. We promise it's going to be a good one, maybe even the best one ever. Yeah, it's a little early prog IO is September 29th and 30th in New York City. But you might as well snag your tickets now because you can save 900 bucks if you do it before June 13th. On top of that, podcast listeners get 10% off by using the code POD10. So what you waiting for? See you there, Peter. Welcome to the podcast.
- [02:02]
Peter Liguori
Thank you for having me.
- [02:05]
Allison Schiff
So, Peter, tell me, what is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know? Because I know a lot of fun things about you. Like when you were at FX Network, SEO and President, you helped launch some TV shows that I think everyone who listens or now watches this podcast has seen. Like the shield, for example, 24, I believe. That's very cool, but something about you that I couldn't find out from from a Google search.
- [02:33]
Peter Liguori
Ah, probably that I am a die hard sports fan and none of my teams have won a championship in decades. I'm a sports fan, a Met fan, I'm a Knick fan, and I'm keeping hope.
- [02:51]
Allison Schiff
So you must feel a little bummed out about The NBA right now?
- [02:57]
Peter Liguori
Yeah. Well, I, as I say, I'm keeping the faith that coming back to the Garden, hopefully home team advantage takes place.
- [03:08]
Allison Schiff
Well, at least you're not a Nets fan. My mother loves the Nets. Her heart was broken months ago, so she's healed already.
- [03:17]
Peter Liguori
Tell her she has my condolences.
- [03:21]
Allison Schiff
So I want to set the scene a little bit talking about the bucket. That video amp is in what you think of, and this is a little navel gaze, but it's kind of an interesting exercise. What do you think of the term alternative currency? Because. And stick with me, this is kind of a weird reference, but I think it makes sense. Sense. It's referential to Nielsen to my mind, in almost the same way as like an atheist is referential to God. Right. Or the concept of God. Because every time you say you're an atheist, you're saying, I don't believe in this. So you're always referencing that thing. Just like videoamp or I spot or comscore. When you're referred to as an alternative currency, it's like, yeah. An alternative to what? To Nielsen. So it's like always calling Nielsen to mind. And I feel like there's some maturity now to the category. Do you think the category is mature enough now that you could do with a little rebrand for the bucket, like new currencies or unified measurement currencies or something like that?
- [04:28]
Peter Liguori
Yeah. Well, I love your instincts because I would not want to be known as my wife's alternate husband. It would be somewhat insulting. And I do think that turn of phrase drives me nuts. And it stems from its genesis is from this absolutely absurd notion that we are an industry that has almost 100% of its eggs in one basket, 100% of its currency measurement eggs in one basket. Now, it's probably to get data driven, probably around 90%, but that's what leads to language. Like everyone else is alternative. I think the turn of phrase should be a multi currency universe, plain and simple, that all of them have their own merits. A currency is nothing more than what a buyer and a seller agree upon is the value. And we have our systems which are big data driven, very tech driven, And Nielsen has their 42,000 home panel. And if you want to call us alternative, I will take insult but won't articulate it. I actually feel that Nielsen's an alternative to fidelity, Nielsen's an alternative to accuracy, and we're an alternative to the way things have been done habitually. So let's go with multi currency buckets, multi currency Buckets.
- [06:04]
Allison Schiff
Okay, so maybe I'll start working that into stories and we'll see if it, if it catches on. It always takes a little time, right until trade market. So we're, we're recording this podcast at the tail end of Upfronts week in New York City. It's always this crazy time, like running around. This year it was pouring rain. You're listening to a of lot all the presentations about all this amazing stuff. It's a real hard sell with a lot of razzle dazzle. But I don't want to talk about the cool new shows and Conan o' Brien and Emily and Paris and all of that stuff. Obviously, I want to nerd out on the measurement and TV currency debate. This is the first year that Nielsen is doing its big data thing, so blending device data with the traditional panel to try and deliver a more accurate and detailed TV audience rating. And that is the idea because it hasn't been going super smoothly. There were some data glitches as Nielsen was rolling out the new currency in the lead up to the upfronts, which is terrible timing. Jack Neff from Ad Age wrote a pretty good piece that people should check out for some more in depth information on that. But what does it say to you? I mean, it's easy to pile on Nielsen and honestly, they do need to do better. But what else do these challenges that Nielsen has been facing here reveal? Like, I don't want to be an apologist, but it does seem like transitioning to a big data driven TV measurement system isn't easy for such an enormous like ship. Right. To turn a big ship around or to change direction is pretty challenging. They've been cut a lot of slack. But we do have to acknowledge it is a big challenge.
- [07:54]
Peter Liguori
Yeah, or the alternative. I think the captain of the Titanic wished that he had turned away from the iceberg a little bit earlier. And what we're doing is supplying all the warning signs that a shift needs to take place. How we look at it with our data, instance in, instance out, we have unearthed more audience than Nielsen has. And it's just a byproduct of when you are looking at 40 million homes and 65 million devices versus 42,000 homes when you have smaller and smaller audiences, the volatility of that Nielsen viewership number is way higher than it is with us. So one turn the big ship around, there is more ratings to be had than one is given credit for. The second aspect of that and why people should turn their turn the ship around is the amount of money Left on the table, we are, given the fact that we're big data driven and tech driven, we are well advanced on advanced audiences. In other words, buying not on demos, but buying on purchase behaviors. You know, Gillette razors versus no Gillette razors. I don't shave my. Getting a Gillette razor. Not, not a good idea. Well, when you start using the amount of big data we have to specifically target prospects and profiles and purchase behavior, what you notice is from a supply standpoint or the studio standpoint, you could pretty much get two times higher CPMs. When you look at it from a buyer's perspective, you're reducing waste by 25 plus percent. You are enhancing conversions, albeit a conversion of sales, albeit a conversion of getting people to your website. All of this is money being left on the table. And if I were just to look at, let's just say the advanced audience segment again, something we do particularly well because that's we, we started. There's probably a good 10% of industry dollars being left on the table, $8 billion that could potentially be used toward the studios monetizing their content better and providing a service which has higher ROI for brands. I would say it may take time, but as I said, if you're the captain of the Titanic and you have the option to turn, I think these people should be turning.
- [10:41]
Allison Schiff
Well, with a few notable exceptions, a lot of brands and agencies and media companies, despite complaining, I mean, the majority aren't using advanced audiences still, I believe, and how they plan to compete with, or the broadcasters plan to compete with Netflix and Amazon, I do not know. But I'm a broadcaster and I'm not using advanced audiences. What is wrong with me? Like, why am I leaving money on the table? Is it inertia? Is it laziness? Is it fear? What's happening?
- [11:13]
Peter Liguori
You know, the father of American psychology is a guy named William James and he wrote habit is the flywheel of society. Just by not changing things. Stay calm. By not changing. I've said this to many legacy media CEOs. No one ever gets fired for using Nielsen. But people do get fired if they in fact go after an alternative currency. So there is this habit. However, if it continues and one undervalues all the content that they're creating and not getting paid for it. If I'm a CMO and I'm noticing wild waste on my ad dollars, it eventually is going to come out in the wash and there's going to be very few competitors. You know, I thought one of the stunning things, stunning differences coming out of the upfronts is Amazon and Netflix took a very tech data driven approach to their presentations. Yeah, yes, they had all the razzle dazzle of great content that could rival that of the great legacy media companies. But their presentations were about the number of hours people spend with their service per month. Netflix cited something like 140 some odd hours per month and a huge number of them are 18 to 34. They presented the power of their advertising that their advertising on a Netflix show generates something like 160% higher sales per impression. You know, they really attacked it from a data driven point of view. And Amazon of course went after their full funnel that they can take you from, you know, brand to, you know, seeing a show to social media to eventually sales, especially sales using Amazon Prime. That is a very different mindset, but it is a mindset geared toward efficacy and not the old spray and pray. So I would say if your bosses said you could keep the podcast going as long as it's profitable and you only have a certain amount of money to advertise it, I would be willing to bet you that you would do the elbow grease of going toward audiences as opposed to just going toward demos. How many people would you suspect are listeners to your podcast or readers of your newsletter and your print? Less than 1%.
- [14:07]
Allison Schiff
Of what? Of humanity?
- [14:10]
Peter Liguori
Yeah.
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Allison Schiff
Less than that. Yeah, sure, less than that.
- [14:13]
Peter Liguori
So why would you spend a dollar on something broad that's saying, you know, men and women 25 to 54 with college educations? If I, if I looked you in the eye and said, Alison, you'd be wasting 90 some odd percent of your money. I think given how curious of a person you are and you want your podcast to survive, you may actually convert to audiences.
- [14:39]
Allison Schiff
I mean, I'm convinced you're a good salesman. So I mean, if we're at a point where some of the most watched content in the world isn't being measured properly, like you've got like way high artificially high reach and low frequency numbers like ala Nielsen for Amazon's NFL Thursday in a, you know, football thing. Like what should advertisers do during the transition to Nielsen's big Data plus panel product? Because they are going to do that too. The, the idea of a multi currency world will include Nielsen. But I don't know, I mean, it seems like it's going to be messy.
- [15:28]
Peter Liguori
It's going to be messy. And NH reported on all the consternation that's out there and, and the lack of forecast ability. And again, you know, I appreciate the compliment of you saying I'm a good salesperson. I don't think I'm a good salesperson. I think I'm a rationalist. I look out there and ask how many people in the advertising industry have invested all of their 401k and all of their portfolios on one stock? And I would probably dare say it's 0%. Then why are you taking your company's business and putting 100% of its currency dollars or 90% of its currency dollars in one currency provider that is announcing that the industry is telling you is volatile, is going through growing pains and you have a second choice and a third choice or a fourth choice. But I'll only talk about the second choice, which is Videoamp, which has a number of years of consistent reporting on 40 million homes and 65 million devices. And we have a history. It's predictable, there's nothing new about it. And what you are basically doing is taking all of your eggs, putting it into the Nielsen basket. And Nielsen is out there letting you know that there are problems and there is volatility and there will be a change. And if you've got to ingest that change and use the elbow grease to effectuate that change, if you're a holding company or a brand, why not open that aperture just a teeny bit more and allow for multi currencies to hedge your bets. And again, William James the flywheel of habit stops them from doing that. But ultimately, if you're very survival, it becomes more of an existential question. You're going to have to answer it that way. Think of some of these legacy media companies on a multi year deal with Nielsen, maybe looking at a $1 billion Nielsen cost and we believe we're less than half that price. We believe our accuracy is higher, we're unearthing more audience just again because of the statistics of 40 million homes versus 42,000 devices. And then if Nielsen answers that and says we too are using big data, they are using big data to take care of the biases in their panels. We're the total opposite. We sit there and start with 40 million homes, we sit there and start with 200 million consumer profiles and then use a panel to augment some of that data for a number of people watching, etc. So they're two very different approaches. Statistically. We look at it and say there's zero doubt in our minds which has the higher fidelity. But all I can do is go out there and challenge how people think what they ultimately think is up to them. If they feel Much more comfortable about two very different. Nielsen's being the same for them. Like internally I joke around and say there's Nielsen and now with Panel plus Big Data, they should call that Elliot Elliott Management, which is the company that owns it. It's an entirely different system in many ways untested by their own admission, unpredictable. Yet you want to put all of your dollars and all of your currency in that. I think this is a big moment in the history of advertising where there really should be open competition and multi currency in order for programmers to get the value of their programming and CMOs to be able to have their dollar go toward efficacy and not just having a reach and frequency goal met.
- [19:38]
Allison Schiff
Did a single currency ever work? I mean obviously it's not fit for purpose now with streaming and the world is very different than when Nielsen was founded. But was a single currency world kind of okay before or do you think it was never really okay?
- [19:56]
Peter Liguori
Well, I think there's a big difference between talking about currency and talking about truth set and high fidelity measurement. It's easy for there to be one currency, right? We do that in the United States all the time. It's way easier to have US dollar as the currency. It's not sexy like you know, you're a business person. Did the dollar go up or down today? What about yesterday?
- [20:28]
Allison Schiff
No idea.
- [20:29]
Peter Liguori
Did the stock market go up last week?
- [20:33]
Allison Schiff
I think it had a decent moment, yeah.
- [20:36]
Peter Liguori
So currency is not sexy because it's used as a given. I always talk about how I'm a lot older than you are. At one point the US wanted to go to the metric system. And so you go to a ballpark and center field would have a sign 400ft and then beneath it it would be re express in metrics. You don't see that anymore. Why? Habit. Used to feed. I'm used to yards. What currency can work? That's not to say that that currency is accurate, that that currency has fidelity. It's just what a buyer and a seller agreeing upon. If I wanted to sell you a can of water, I could sit there and express it in lira or I could express it in dollars. If I express it in lira, you're sitting there and going, I need to do the translation. What's more accurate? They're both accurate lirin dollars equivalize. My big issue is I appreciate the ease of a single currency. But sit there and say everyone's leaving money on the table and not doing their job by allowing that to occur. There is higher fidelity out there. There is ways to drive your dollar further. And if you're not taking advantage of it now with CPMs going down with CPMs probably going down in an accelerated level when Netflix goes from 1 to 2 to $3 billion of advertising sales, putting more inventory in the system where Amazon will have, let's call it 3 billion US TV ad dollars put in the system. If you're taking an $80 million TAM and and then adding an additional 6 or $7 billion to that, almost an additional 10% of supply, you are going to have to figure out ways where you're creating greater value. Because if you stick with just one currency and it's a demo currency, there's only one race to have and that is a race to the lowest CPMs. And so get the value that you're creating.
- [22:46]
Allison Schiff
Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we're back, we'll talk about other ways not to leave Lyra on the table. So stick with us.
- [22:56]
Peter Liguori
Thank you.
- [23:16]
Allison Schiff
All right, welcome back. And I want to ask a broader question about linear television. So a lot of people talk about the death of linear tv, but it does kind of feel like sports is all it's got because my mom is the perfect demographic for linear TV. She's in her mid-70s, she loves dramas and she used to watch the Good Wife when it was on tv, you know, for the first time around. But now, other than the NBA, she's a huge basketball fan. There is nothing, literally nothing she watches on television. She doesn't even DVR stuff anymore. It's just the NBA and Netflix. So if a woman in her mid-70s is not watching TV, who is watching TV?
- [24:09]
Peter Liguori
Still a lot of people. You know, if you look at the ad ad business, still a good 80 plus percent of all ad sales dollars comes from broadcast TV. And so what's going to happen to linear over time? It'll continue to drop 5 to 7% per year, but there is still an appetite for it. And again, let's go back to habit. I think old habits die hard. Now I ask you to actually broaden out a bit in thinking and saying from a programmer's standpoint, yes, the death of linear is frightening because I have two revenue streams from linear. I get paid a subscription fee or I get paid a fee from my cable operator for my content. And I have ad sales and it's pretty fulsome dollars on, on both ends. But as a programmer, I also look at that and say, I could take my piece of content. I could take your mom's favorite Drama and show it on broadcast and then show it on my streaming service a day or two thereafter, as long as I am monetizing that story to its fullest. It's a cross screen experience and a cross screen investment. And look, one of the things that we're trying to do as a measurement company that not just does things for ad sales, but helps studios with their marketing and their tune in efforts is and whether or not they should pick up a show or change a show, whatever, is we actually value a piece of programming during its lifespan. So rather than saying what did it do last night? It's what has it done to date? And that's the investment you're putting in. And how are you monetizing that show over the course of the day, three days, seven days, a month, or even a year if it's adding to your library on streaming. So I do think, you know, it's inevitable that streamers will wind up being the majority as people would rather pay a la carte than, let's call it a prefix A. But it's going to be, you know, a bit of a, of a slower turnover than I think most people rationally would, would guess. But you know, again, old habits die hard. And when you have things like the NFL and the NBA Finals on broadcast TV live, you're sitting there and saying that's highly valuable content. That's not something you could stream the next day. And part of the genius of the NFL's great success is every man, woman and child in America has free access to two games or three games per week. And we know the story of every one of those 32 teams. So yeah, broadcast will be around. It's going to dissipate, but it's going to be an evolution, not a revolution.
- [27:32]
Allison Schiff
And you know, of what you speak, I mean, you have a lot of experience from the broadcast world. You were the former chairman of Fox Entertainment. So this isn't just observational from outside, you were in it.
- [27:44]
Peter Liguori
Yeah. And everything old is new again. Look, I've been around. I'm a geriatric, I'm a dinosaur in the business. But I remember back when I was at HBO and we sat there and basically people were saying, who's going to pay for television? Well, now we have Svod. A lot of people are paying for television. And then when I was at fx, I never stated this publicly because I didn't want the target on my back, but I pitched Rupert the idea of free hbo. What do you mean free hbo? I go HBO with ads and he's like who's going to buy ads on really challenging programming? And I said liquor advertisers, movie advertisers, gamers. I go, you know, sure, there's adult audiences that are seeking content that actually buy adult products. And what's happening today, all the aspod business is going to avod because there is higher revenue, there's higher ARPU behind an AVOD model than an SVOD model. So I'm never surprised by the disruption. It is the willingness to take advantage of the opportunities that disruption reveals. And currencies, one of the last great frontiers of opening it up to competition and innovation will wind up paying dividends for all involved.
- [29:19]
Allison Schiff
Frankly, if I were Huggies or any brand targeting young parents, I would want to be against all of that content you were just talking about because all of my friends who have kids, it's their only break is watching streaming. So not, not just adult focused brands, but parent focused brands, that would be a great place to reach them. And I think a lot of those advertisers would feel like it. It's not brand safe for them, but I think it would be the perfect placement.
- [29:49]
Peter Liguori
Yeah. And look, you could hedge your bets now in this, in this much more technical world that we live in, we can identify that an audience again, the streamers have all their first party data. We could identify a young couple who are having their first child who happens to have been watching a bunch of other adult like shows. They're not going to be offended by seeing a Huggies ad on any on an episode of Euphoria. By way of example, they're going to to Euphoria. They're actually getting a piece of advertising, a piece of information which is relevant to them, personalized for them, tailored for them. Who's going to have a problem with that?
- [30:45]
Allison Schiff
I want to switch gears a little bit and dish on those patent infringement lawsuits that Nielsen has been filing against everybody. Video amp but also TV Squared Metrics T Vision got slapped. By my count, it's something like nine or so patent infringement suits overall against rival measurement companies in just, I don't know, 3ish years, which is a lot. And the suit that was against you guys was for allegedly violating two patents related to the duration of viewing sessions and collecting viewer data. And that was dismissed by a federal court in March. But how did these legal battles affect your ability to attract and retain clients? Is that a factor at all and or is it distracting?
- [31:37]
Peter Liguori
It's a bit of all the above. Look, it's a business strategy. Nielsen has a business Strategy. When you are a monolith and you having your own way and you're well monetized and backed by a behemoth private equity company in Elliott management, you are able to sit there and have access to capital to compete in the courts and not for client wallets. And so yes, it is distracting and yes, it puts my business up to risk, not because of the ridiculousness of the lawsuit as confirmed by a judge, but it affects my business because I'm basically a mid age startup capital is hard for me to come by. And you know, when in my, in my business life I've always taken on the man, right? I've always taken on paid tv, taking on broadcast home video, taking in a weird way taking on the movie theaters, you know, Fox keeping its inner child, yet taking on the big three. And this is an incident, an instance where well capitalized monoliths are expressing a little bit too much power in the system. You know, they're able to pay for the lawsuits. They're actually able to pay for mrc. Like the reason why we have been delayed in going for and going through the process of MRC accreditation had very little to do with whether or not we were technically ready. It had everything to do with could we afford to hire the people to go through the process, come up with the resources to pay for it. I mean I consider MRC the Augusta of accrediting services. But if you want to join Augusta, you better be able to come up with the initiation fee and then you better be able to come up with the annual membership fee. And there's a reason why the club is exclusive. It's damn expensive and we go through these processes. But if you have almost 90% market share and are well capitalized, you do things like go over 40 for 5 on your lawsuits and then when one fails you just log another one. Because it keeps my eye off the ball, it drains me of finance, it stops competition, it stops innovation and it keeps the monolith's iron grip on having a single currency and everything else being alternate. It is bad for the industry, period.
- [34:29]
Allison Schiff
It's a tactic for sure. I wanted to ask you whether, whether you were disappointed when Paramount settled its dispute with Nielsen earlier this year. And just as a refresher for our listeners, Paramount and Nielsen had a dispute. Paramount's contract expired and Paramount was objecting to Nielsen raising its prices by a lot. And so Paramount stopped using Nielsen's ratings and turned to you guys. Well, I think you already had a pre existing relationship.
- [35:00]
Peter Liguori
Yeah.
- [35:01]
Allison Schiff
And that was pretty Audacious, I think, for them to do. But then a few months later, handful of months later, Paramount settled its dispute with Nielsen and signed this new multi year contract to license their measurement and analytics for broadcast, cable and streaming. Paramount still works with videoamp too. But did part of you kind of like think or hope that maybe Paramount and Nielsen like wouldn't work it out?
- [35:24]
Peter Liguori
Yeah, look, I'll look at it emotionally and rationally. Rationally. On September 30th we signed a three year deal with Paramount. And October 1st, Nielsen pulled the rug out from Paramount. I can tell you John Halle on September 30 believed he would get a Nielsen extension done, you know, the very next day or soon there, there thereafter. It was always designed with multicurrency. I always knew there would be an end to us being exclusive. But so yeah, was I disappointed? Of course I always like the fantasy of, you know, maybe Nielsen's never going to snap back and come to attention. But a lot of good came of that one. The industry realized for four months that one of the biggest media companies on earth could transact without Nielsen. And that was proven through every holdco and almost 2,000 brands strong. Paramount did extremely well. They had their, their best scatter market probably, you know, since the merger and the least number of options exercised in like the last five years. So there was a lot of success. It moved forward Holdco's adoption and I dare say, you know, people sit there and say who actually came out better in that negotiation. And I can infer by the fact that we're continuing to do demos, we're continuing to do advanced audiences, we're continuing to do content and tune in, etc. With Paramount, we are a currency with Paramount across all of them. That one would have to sit back and say Paramount probably did really well after Nielsen pulled the stunt of holding their data back. And the other thing is, I think that clients got exposed to how Nielsen actually doesn't service their clients as much as they service their private equity owner and their debt. And the one example I would give was the stunt that right before Christmas, Paramount Nielsen pulled reporting systems for ratings. Right before Christmas, when everyone was ready to leave, their expectation was the holding companies were going to call up Paramount and say, you have to settle this dispute. And all the holding companies did was sit there and say, Nielsen is using us to get a deal done with Paramount. They are not servicing their clients, they're servicing their debt, they're servicing their investors. And that's just not how we do business. In fact, and I Realize it was self serving marketing, but we gave away our ratings for free during that period of time. If you couldn't, if you wanted to use us and not them, go ahead, we're not going to charge you because we feel very, very strongly about being client focused and we put our resources toward creating client services. I look no further than where does a dollar get spent on Niels. Nielsen has 13,000 employees. We have 375 employees. We did all the scaling up front. We've created a wildly efficient system where I would say we have higher accuracy and higher fidelity. And I'm taking my client dollars to go back and invest for service, not to go back and pay 13,000 employees.
- [39:17]
Allison Schiff
Well, I want to step back from talking about Nielsen for a second and talk a little bit more about videomp as a company. It's been about a year and a half since Ross McCrae, the founder and CEO stepped down and then you stepped into the role of executive chairman. And you know, there were some things that happened. There were some layoffs early last year, a few rounds. There was a restructuring, certain struggles toward achieving profitability. There was like some criticism about the culture that it's a little bro y crossfit meets frat house. That's just something from Glassdoor. But what are you doing to, you know, just manage through that, deal with any instability in the business and make the culture more inviting.
- [40:04]
Peter Liguori
So you know, by far and away we have not perfected culture. I don't know if any company really, really has. So how do we change the culture? I think first and foremost is over communication and kind of an incredible amount of transparency. I make sure the employee base is not in the dark. And what we've done is we've channeled, let's call it some of that CrossFit mentality, that hard driving mentality and put it toward business results. We have a performance culture. We will hold people accountable. And I think what wound up happening is we took some of that competitive instinct that people were actually putting toward things outside of the business and reverted it to things back in the business. This, the 375 employees outside this office want to win. They want to be better. And we fan those flames and you know, it's exciting to be part of a revolution. You know, it's, it's not easy. You know, one of the biggest challenges I've ever had in my working life was when Fox became number one. It's like now my problem is how do I maintain that inner rebel that Fox had. And you feed the Flames of Stay a Rebel. And let's have the biggest distance between us and number two that that has been in the history of television here. The culture has become much more focused on winning business, servicing business, having happy clients, and there is a reward there that keeps feeding on itself that I think when you go from startup to a much more scaled company and a bit more of a mature company, it's great to have had that foundation because all we've done is kind of diverted those instincts towards something that's serving our clients and servicing ourselves well.
- [42:15]
Allison Schiff
Kind of related to the maturing of Videoamp as a company. And also the category, I'll just call it Alternative Currencies because it's shorthand. Sort of like every AI powered ad platform out there has a plus sign after it in the, in the nomenclature. It feels like everyone has a front, you know, a quote unquote front. I mean, there are upfronts, of course, and the new fronts came along and now you guys host your own front. This year, a few months ago was your second annual. So I guess this will be a thing vamp front event. So why do you guys, as a measurement provider, why do you need a front too?
- [42:56]
Peter Liguori
I think we need a front because what we're doing, you know, it's, it's all the great content in the world will not exist unless it's monetized. And if you're going to go and figure out what, what you're going to invest in in terms of content, you should figure out how you're going to invest in it as well. And what we do every day is we're out there proselytizing for a new way of doing business, new way of measuring, way of reporting, a new way of targeting, a new way of reducing waste. And ultimately that's the mechanics that allows studios to create that content and have advertisers say their advertising investment is worth it. So that's why we do it up front, because it's not all just about that looks like a good show because I'll use an example that Netflix gave. I was kind of blown away by that statistic. Not one of their shows represents 1% of the Netflix viewing experience. And then take that across the landscape. Buying one great show is not going to make or break your marketing campaign. You're buying many shows on many screens, on many platforms, and your being educated on how to most effectively and efficiently invest is almost more important than what content you're investing in. And the two work hand in hand, granted. But if you're going to lean in on one versus the other. You're going to have your investment be a lot closer to run of schedule, meaning that you'll be on many different shows to get your reach and frequency goals. But what are those goals? How you're defining those goals, how you're distributing that messaging is really the meat and potatoes of the advertising and marketing.
- [45:02]
Allison Schiff
Word to the wise, by the way. If anyone wants to reach mid-70s Women in Florida, they should target, if they can, South Korean romance dramas because they are all the rage and obsession. Just saying.
- [45:19]
Peter Liguori
Well, the reason why I'm laughing is my wife, who is not in her 70s, but is in her 60s, is on her third Chinese soap opera. Yeah, and you know, it's, it's incredible. But that, but you're highlighting something. There is so much fragmentation. Like who would think that you and I would be having a conversation about your 70 year old mom in. In Florida watching South Korean soaps, my 60 some odd year old wife watching Chinese soaps. Like most people say, it's not even on their radar screen. Multiply that by the number of channels, multiply that by completely fluid scheduling of the same show and you realize that you have to have a big data approach in order to be able to ascertain value and ascertain effectiveness. And the industry has to break away from a single mindset and open it up to competition and open up to innovation because the world is fragmented out there and the idea of just having a unilateral point of view on the value of that to me is blatantly absurd.
- [46:41]
Allison Schiff
So you've been a very good sport. So I'm going to ask if you're down to do because we're nearly out of time. Just a quick lightning round. Five to ten second answers. But closer to five second answers.
- [46:52]
Peter Liguori
I'm up for the challenge.
- [46:54]
Allison Schiff
Okay, what is the most dysfunctional thing you've seen in TV measurement other than anything Nielsen related?
- [47:05]
Peter Liguori
Next question. I'm not going to be able to do it in five seconds. I'm just sorry. The most dysfunctional thing is spray and pray with demos.
- [47:19]
Allison Schiff
So Nielsen, not your favorite thing, but if you could take one thing from their playbook, what would it be?
- [47:26]
Peter Liguori
Their market share.
- [47:30]
Allison Schiff
As a former entertainment executive, what is more challenging? Launching a hit TV show or convincing more advertisers to trust a new measurement currency?
- [47:42]
Peter Liguori
The latter.
- [47:45]
Allison Schiff
What? Well, you already answered this, but what metric do you think is Most overrated in TV ad measurement? Demos?
- [47:53]
Peter Liguori
GRPs?
- [47:57]
Allison Schiff
What are you streaming right now when you're not watching Chinese soaps? With your wife if you do.
- [48:02]
Peter Liguori
I've been watching Friends and Neighbors.
- [48:06]
Allison Schiff
What's Friends and Neighbors?
- [48:07]
Peter Liguori
That's the Jon Hammer.
- [48:09]
Allison Schiff
Ah, yes.
- [48:11]
Peter Liguori
Shouts Indeed.
- [48:13]
Allison Schiff
Indeed. And what's your favorite guilty pleasure TV show?
- [48:21]
Peter Liguori
Landman.
- [48:22]
Allison Schiff
Okay, I'm going to answer my own question because I think it's kind of funny, but I'm finally watching Silicon Valley. I never saw it and it's amazing. It's phenomenal. It's so real, just like.
- [48:37]
Peter Liguori
Yeah, well, for someone like me, it's an insight into two generations younger than me.
- [48:44]
Allison Schiff
I mean, I'm watching it 10 years too late. So I should have watched it in my 30s. Now I'm in my 40s. All right, so we're out of the lightning round now. This is just to bring us home. What would you say is the biggest challenge to achieving true cross platform measurement? And then how do we overcome that challenge?
- [49:08]
Peter Liguori
You know, I think it's the collective will of the industry. You know, I'm going to give you an example. You know, when I was at Fox, we had a show that Dana walden produced called 24 and 24. Yeah, well, you're young. I don't know. Thank you. 24 was probably the first prominent serialized show that people DVR'd. And we knew that we were creating great value with that show, but people were watching it three days after. Sometimes people would save it so they could binge watch over a weekend. And the ads were on and people aren't skipping ads like we thought. You don't even really hear about that very much anymore. And we were not getting paid the value from advertisers that the show created. So we basically went to the market and said, first with C3 commercial ratings plus three days after it airs, you're going to pay us for those three days. And then we went as far as C C7 commercial plus seven days. And why? It's because the ads were being seen, the ads had value. And we sat there and it took some will to say, hey, if you don't want to advertise on 24 and not pay us for 7 days worth of viewing, go to the next show. Look, one of the saving graces that linear TV could explore is their live sports and live events. And if you don't want to be in live sports and live events and potentially live sports and live events with a higher fidelity currency, well then move on. And that's scary. It's scary to say no to money. However, if it becomes de rigueur, it winds up being the lifeblood of your business. I look at and look, I was a CEO of a publicly traded media company. I look at the current CEOs and sit there and say this is something you have access to. You are leaving money on the table. You could only raise the price of theme parts so much. You can only cut production so much. You can only have so many layoffs. Why are you spending calories on that and not spending calories on something that is proven that you're using and will just take some willpower to effectuate? And so that's my hope and vision for the future. Look, I don't really need, and I'm not saying this from a financial basis, I'm saying this from an age and experience basis. I do not need to be doing something with. The answer so frequently is no. First, the answers are yes. But I do believe in this. And I do feel that I would like to end my working life having programmers and creatives get paid for the value that they're creating with their great storytelling and marketers to have the most effective tools possible. And you know, when I'm sitting there eating tapioca in Boca, you know, maybe I'll feel a little better about what I've done with my working life.
- [52:41]
Allison Schiff
Just so you know, when you are seated before 4:30pm you get a discount.
- [52:47]
Peter Liguori
By the way, I'm pretty close to that now, so I'm not going to joke about it.