Netflix’s updated standard for what constitutes a ‘view’ is renewing the contentious debate about viewership measurements across the digital space. The company wrote in its latest quarterly earnings report that it had lowered the threshold for a view to someone who watched a piece of content for at least two minutes.
The definition of what constitutes a view varies across platforms. Facebook and Instagram’s standard is just three seconds, though, arguably, their content is generally much shorter than a standard episode. Snapchat starts counting a view as soon as the video appears on the screen, but its content takes over the whole screen whereas Facebook videos could appear alongside other written content. YouTube charges marketers for its TrueView in-stream ads only if the viewer watches at least 30 seconds of a video.
Jed Meyer, managing director of North America, said:
Advertisers and their agencies are looking for clarity when evaluating core metrics across platforms and devices — they want consistency and independent, third-party measurement. This move by Netflix potentially creates more confusion and complexity in the market – the opposite of what clients are looking for.”
Read the full article in Cheddar.
First featured on 22/01/2020.
