Sky announced today that it is adopting NBCUniversal’s cross-platform ‘CFlight’ metric across all of Sky Media’s content and platforms, as NBCU seeks to push global adoption of the metric. Sky and NBCUniversal have been gradually aligning their advertising solutions since NBCU owner Comcast bought Sky last year, with the two announcing back in March that Sky’s addressable TV advertising solution AdSmart is expanding to NBCU. NBCU hopes the metric will be adopted widely beyond Comcast’s walls, and hopes the Sky roll-out as a way to help the metric gain global traction in other markets.
CFlight launched in April last year and is designed to measure an ad campaign’s reach regardless of when it was watched, or which screen it was watched on. NBCU says CFlight draws from other industry measurement sources, including Nielsen in the US and BARB in the UK, to measure all live, on-demand and time-shifted commercial impressions, while equalising commercial impressions across screens.
The metric methodology is open-source, as NBCU hopes to see it used across the industry. The broadcaster says that buyers are already on-board – it worked with agencies including GroupM, Magna and Omnicom Media Group to develop the metric, and claims on its site that “all agencies have agreed to transact off of CFlight”.
Other broadcasters are starting to show interest too. Viacom last month announced it is adopting the CFlight’s methodology, with NBCU hopeful that other US broadcasters will follow suit. Sky meanwhile will roll out the metric in the UK this Autumn, with further expansion across Sky’s European markets planned for 2020.
“Sky offers viewers the ability to watch all their favourite programmes live, on-demand, via catch-up, at home in front of the TV or on their mobile while on the go,” said John Litster, MD at Sky Media UK. “Now with CFlight, we can give advertisers consistent, accurate measurement across all platforms and types of viewing – a first for the UK. We also continue to support the mission of BARB in the UK to deliver an industry-wide view.”
NBCU’s EVP of insights and measurement Kavita Vazirani meanwhile said that industry collaboration on new metrics will benefit all players. She said, “Global consumers aren’t going back in time. They are watching premium video across a wide range of screens, and it’s imperative that the industry comes together and develops new measurement to match.”
