Here is a first for me - I am really impressed with a new product from Nielsen.  Usually I am at odds with the ratings service for poor sampling, having a monopoly (with the inherent high prices) - the list goes on.  But they are now offering a new service in metered markets that blew me away during a demo last week.

It is called Grabix.  Finally local TV stations can make sense of those overnights through this daily minute-by-minute recap of audio and video from all newscasts in the market.  The service displays a minute-by-minute ratings graph across the top of the page with video of all newscasts stacked below that with graphs that show where viewers are going and coming from.   So, instead of guessing why you lost viewers at 6:21 p.m. you can see what your newscast and the competition were doing at that very minute.

It also has a nifty feature that allows you to quickly email a clip to anyone.   For instance, let’s say you have been telling your anchors to keep their chit-chat quick and focused during the morning newscasts.   You go on Grabix and see an exchange that goes too long, and causes meter tune-out.   With one click you can email not only the video clip, but the meter graphic to those anchors for instant feedback.

You get the video clips and minute-by-minute information the next day, and on the second day you get additional charts showing where the gains and losses where during each minute as well as closed-captioning of all the newscasts.  The closed-captioning feature opens up a number of other options with Grabix.

With the closed captioning you can do an amazing word search.  Let’s say, for instance, you want to see how quickly the news audience lost interest in the Balloon Boy story.  You search the key word - Balloon Boy - and quickly get a list of all mentions of those two words in your newscasts over the past 3-to-7 days.  You can scroll down the page and not only see what the copy said, but also the household ratings while the story was on your air on that day as well as seeing the video seven minutes on either side of that particular slice of copy.   The page is filled with your copy on the Balloon Boy with the date and time each reference was made.   It is a great tool.

This instant side-by-side comparison of your newscasts and the competition is a powerful weapon.    The best part is your staff can be trained and explore Grabix in a myriad of ways without asking NSI to run some special ratings info that usually comes back with graphics that are difficult - if not impossible - to easily analyze.  

I have just touched on what I think are the best parts of this new service.   Here is the list of possibilities from Nielsen’s Grabix web site:

• See which elements of your news are attracting viewers or losing them
• Determine what type of audience your lead-in program delivered
• Assess your audience’s reaction to topics, guests and break-aways
• Schedule breaks and teasers for optimal results
• Compare how other stations are covering news stories in your market
• Compare your program content and audience delivery with your competition
• Search for and retrieve news clips with ratings
• Analyze audience movement more easily
• Evaluate on-air talent in your market
• Document success, proving your news was first with the story

Now, while many of those items may be possible, I do need to add some caution here.  Just as you have to guess what might have caused a tune-out during the old minute-by-minute breakouts - Grabix also requires some interpetation.   Yes, you did drop at a certain point, and you can see what was on your air versus what the competition was airing at the same time - but did your rating drop because of the content, the anchor, the story telling?   Even with this improved service there remains some guess work.  That’s why we believe it is a service that should augment your AR&D research and partnership with your strategist.   Strategy will be set based on the opportunities seen in the research - and Grabix can help us make decisions on whether it is working - based on many factors.

With that caution - it is a very cool new idea.

Jim

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.