Comcast and Nielsen are testing ways to provide up-to-date ads in older VOD episodes, potentially removing one of the biggest hurdles to making catch-up viewing profitable for providers.
The nation’s number one cable provider announced Monday that it is partnering with Nielsen to offer On Demand Commercial Ratings (ODCR), which will allow Comcast to insert current ads into older shows. Nielsen will then count the number of people who view those ads within a three day window after they first appear—another form of C3.
Comcast has already tested ODCR with NBC—which it owns—and ABC over the summer, and hopes to sign up even more networks. If the system works, viewers will all see the same ad regardless of whether they’re watching an episode of a show like “The Blacklist” from this week, or earlier this month. And advertisers could warm to the technology quickly because cable providers disable the ability to skip ads in their VOD offerings.
Read More: Deadline, Variety, Multichannel News
Brief Take: With catch-up and binge viewing here to stay—and only growing more popular—Comcast is taking the first concrete steps to change advertisers’ approach to VOD.
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