Last week saw the unveiling of CFlight, the new UK audience measurement tool developed by Sky in collaboration with Channel 4 and ITV, ahead of its scheduled launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Developed initially by NBCUniversal, CFlight promises to deliver unified TV audience measurement capturing the majority of live, on-demand, and time-shifted commercial impacts and impressions across all platforms.
According to Ampere Analysis’ latest report, CFlight will provide parity between measurement of both linear and broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) TV viewing by combining BARB panel-level data with census-level BVOD and account reach data from a large range of BVOD players, estimated to cover over 98% of UK broadcaster advertising.
This development will be welcomed by broadcasters, as well as media agencies for whom TV audience measurement plays a fundamental role in estimating the reach and impressions of TV ad-campaigns, Ampere noted. BARB plays a key role in this by capturing the linear aspect of total viewing using its panel of c.5k homes, but reporting of BVOD ad impressions remains fragmented between each broadcaster sales house. CFlight will improve upon the current system by creating a unified measurement of ad reach and impressions between all BVOD players, while showing the incremental effect of being used alongside linear TV ad campaigns.
As consumer viewing behaviors shift toward on-demand, broadcasters have become increasingly reliant on digital ad sales to deliver growth. Revenue from BVOD advertising generated only 6% (£293 million) of broadcaster TV advertising revenue, but by 2026 this is set to climb to 24% (£1 billion) while annual linear TV ad revenue is set to fall by £1.173 billion over the same period of time.
“CFlight’s delivery of reliable audience measurement metrics across all BVOD players is likely to accelerate this shift as media agencies seek to capitalize on the growing BVOD audience. Furthermore, the connected nature of BVOD creates the opportunity for advanced advertising features such as addressable advertising to a mass audience. These developments, as well as changing consumer behaviors, are set to make BVOD a more compelling advertising opportunity for media agencies and an increasingly important revenue stream for broadcasters,” commented Bhavini Gohil, Senior Analyst at Ampere Analysis and the author of the report.
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