I'm not going to revisit all my thoughts regarding a commercial ratings system of some sort here since, if you've been reading AdJab for more than a week, you all know how I feel about it. But this Chicago Tribune article on the matter did spur me to mention just how important such a system is to the advertising industry.

Up until now it's been accepted that the number of people watching a television show were also watching the ads. While that might seem overly naive, it's been the only real way to even estimate those numbers. But logically that means advertisers are spending millions of dollars on ads that, whether it's through DVR-skipping or just standing up to go to the bathroom, aren't actually being watched. It needs to be vitally important to them as well as to their stakeholders that they know what ads are being watched and what ads aren't. That kind of information can help them both save what would otherwise be wasted money and develop more effective campaigns. So saving money and making more money are the two end results for advertisers.

That's why it's kind of ridiculous that media buyers, with a few exceptions, haven't been more active in the talks about setting up a better system for reaching this goal. Right now most of the stories about the matter have revolved around the measurers, Nielsen for the most part, and the media they'll be measuring. That's like a manufacturer deciding what price point works best for a retailer without looking at what the end consumer is actually willing to pay. No one is going to survive like that and the consumer is the one that winds up getting screwed.