Sky, ITV and Channel 4 have announced they will work together on the industry’s first unified advertising metric.
CFlight will capture live, on-demand and time-shifted commercial impressions across all mainstream viewing platforms in the UK.
The post-campaign online evaluation tool will use combined linear TV and broadcaster VOD (BVOD) data to show media buyers what the overall advertising exposure is for their TV campaigns, notably reach and frequency metrics.
CFlight was initially developed by Sky’s sister company NBCUniversal as part of its One Platform. Sky has subsequently adapted the CFlight standards and methodology for the UK media marketplace to reflect its own portfolio, before working in conjunction with Channel 4 and ITV on a pan-broadcaster version.
In a joint statement, Tim Pearson, MD of Sky Media UK, Veriça Djurdjevic, Channel 4’s Chief Revenue Officer, and Kelly Williams, Managing Director, Commercial, ITV said: “CFlight’s launch will be a pivotal moment for the TV ad industry, proving the power of TV advertising across linear and broadcaster VOD for the first time. The result of major collaboration, it will provide a pioneering, simple and much-needed new unified metric to demonstrate the significant, growing value of BVOD, and we’re excited for its continued evolution.”
In the UK, TV advertising across linear and BVOD (Broadcaster VOD) accounts for 91% of all the video advertising people see. The launch of CFlight represents the first time that the overall reach and frequency of total TV can be measured in the UK, bringing greater clarity to the impact of TV advertising investment as viewing redistributes across linear and on demand.
CFlight in the UK is based on BARB’s linear TV impacts derived from its ‘gold standard’ viewing panel, and BVOD impressions from broadcaster ad servers. The data methodology and process will be audited by ABC, the industry body for media measurement auditing.
