Researchers Track Film Audiences Across Media

Two industry research giants are expanding their data offerings that will immerse Hollywood with more insights about consumer viewing of movies across multiple media platforms. Comscore and Nielsen both announced separate film initiatives this month.

Comscore unveiled its Movies Everywhere service for “a new reporting system to track box office movies performance across all platforms,” including cinema. Though historically web-centric, Comscore collects cinema boxoffice data, after its 2016 merger with Rentrak. Besides theatrical boxoffice, Comscore says Movies Everywhere will bundle consumer activity data on transactional on demand video, over-the-top rentals, smart connected TV sets and streaming views.

There’s stitching together of data from different sources to create composite profiles of consumers that Comscore says is useful in understanding an audience for a film. “The Movies Everywhere concept…is built to capture audience insights based on the interconnectivity of today’s entertainment ecosystem,” Comscore senior movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian says in statement.

In September, Comscore announced its Cinema Auditorium Control Engine (Cinema ACE) launched to centralize content management within multiscreen theaters, such as automating the transfer of features.  In August, Comscore released what it called an improved movie reporting and data analytics software suite.

Earlier this month, Nielsen introduced its Theatrical Video On-Demand (TVOD) service measuring audiences for movies directly available to consumers to rent or purchase on-demand through streaming/MVPD platforms. “Additionally, it will deliver detailed demographic and behavioral information beyond what the standard box office metrics, transactional rental or purchase information often provides, allowing for crucial audience-driven decisions in regard to licensing and promotion,” says a Nielsen press release.

Nielsen draws from TV ratings panel of over 40,000 households with observational information for over 100,000 persons, plus has deals for TV settop box viewing data.

With the pandemic keeping consumers at home, traditional viewing patterns are upended so “appropriately monetizing new revenue streams has never been more crucial,” Nielsen general manager of audience measurement Scott N. Brown said in a press release. “A bigger question might be what will audiences do following any recovery, how the behavior adopted during stay-at-home orders might influence habits when consumers have the ability to go back to theaters to enjoy that experience.”

In audience viewing data for streaming in calendar 2020, Nielsen provided ranked the top most streamed theatricals (see accompanying table). Its “Tops of 2020: Nielsen Streaming Unwrapped” report identified that “eight of the top 10 movies (in terms of minutes watched) available on SVOD platforms in 2020 were kids’ titles. Unlike adults, children will watch and re-watch their favorite content time and time again (perhaps despite the sake of their parents’ possible sanity). This helped land titles like ‘Frozen II’, ‘Moana’, ‘Secret Life of Pets 2’ and ‘Onward’ into this year’s top 10 list, with each attracting viewership of between 8.3 billion and nearly 15 billion minutes each.” (story continues after table below)

Top Streaming Content of 2020: MOVIES

Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. U.S. Persons 2+, Total Minutes Viewed During 2020 (Dec. 30, 2019, through Dec. 27, 2020).
Read as: Frozen II had nearly 15 billion minutes streamed.

Nielsen’s “Tops of 2020” adds: “In addition to providing a stop-gap to the traditional theater experience during a year where many spent their time close to home, kids movies on streaming platforms likely helped many households cope with having children at home when they would traditionally be away at school.”

The Comscore and Nielsen initiatives have a wide focus collected from lots of audience data, so are differentiated from the Hollywood’s cottage industry of smaller research boutiques. The smaller specialist firms provide targeted data such as tracking audience interest in batches of specific movies before release and consumer reaction in closed screenings to individual movies (so-called preview or test screenings). Those boutique efforts are of the custom research flavor, unlike the widely distributed syndicated research from Comscore and Nielsen.

Related content:

• Deadline.com: Comscore Introduces ‘Movies Everywhere’ Cross-Screen Measurement System
• Media Post: Comscore Launches Cross-Platform Movie Measurement
• Press Release: Comscore to Launch New Cross-Platform Movie Measurement Solution
• Press Release: New Next Generation Movie Theater Management System Now Available from Comscore
• Press Release: Comscore Unveils Improved Customer Experience Across its Movies Reporting and Analytics Suite
• Press Release: Nielsen Begins Tracking Premium Theatrical Films On Streaming Platforms