Another reason for ad revs to drop

Every time I quiz someone in traditional media about audience measurement, all I hear is how horrible and inaccurate the current measuring techniques are...Nielsens, Arbitron, etc. And yet, billions are spent based on the best "guesses". The web is better but there is still no clear standard. Because bigger numbers drive bigger deals, the tendency is of course to skew data upward. The marketplace will settle on standards and technology that will represent a more accurate representation of audience size and behaviors. We are getting better at this all the time. This is going to be the only way to make sense of the "infinite" inventory and separate the 'wheat from the tares' in terms of quality properties for marketers to spend money.

As this shakes out, only the obvious "prime time sites" will continue to enjoy the highest inventory sold rates with high CPM's, while everyone else will barely scrape by. And, the overall dollar spend will drop as dollars continue to shift from traditional media (where measurement is most ambiguous) to digital (where measurement is closer to reality).