IAB to Launch Digital Audio Council to Standardize Audience Measurement on Streaming Services

ARMIDALE, Australia - Feb. 12, 2015 - PRLog -- A new council that aims to promote audience measurement in the online audio streaming segment will be launched by Australia’s Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a report on Mumbrella.com said.

The report revealed that the IAB announced it will be launching a Digital Audio Council following Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) stance on streaming analytics. Last year, CRA’s Joan Warner told the media to “leave it to the ‘Pandoras’ and ‘Rdios’ of the world” for the time being, when asked about the lack of audience measurement in the streaming space.

The council will allow media buyers to access data from a wide array of streaming services operating in Australia such as Spotify, Pandora, iHeart Radio and Rdio.

“Last year, key players in the space sought out the IAB to discuss how we can tackle and address their needs to moving forward, particularly in the audience measurement space,” Alice Manners, CEO of IAB Australia told Mumbrella.

Speaking about speculations that they are challenging the CRA, Manners made it clear to the Australian media outfit that they were, in fact, working closely with the CRA on the project.

“This is absolutely not a challenge to CRA. The IAB works collaboratively with all trade association and we have been in discussions with Joan on the next steps,” Mumbrella quoted her. “This Council exists in other markets.”

In line with the announcement, the IAB also said that it will be forming an Ad Tech Advisory Council, which will be tasked to “give voice” to advertising stakeholders.

The development comes in the wake of Nielsen Audio’s announcement that it is targeting to launch an audio measurement feature by the middle of this year.

The radio ratings authority, which was bought by Arbitron last year, has been hinting at launching a measurement service for the streaming space to gain on its competitor, Triton Digital, according to RAIN News. Triton Digital is the current leader in the space, with MRC-accredited ratings akin to traditional radio metrics.

What this meant for the ratings industry as well as streaming services, artists, broadcasters and advertisers is that they will now gain better insight on consumer listening habits, creating better media ratings metrics, and how to better monetize content.

Advertising in the streaming space is also not to be left behind in terms of making it easier for broadcasters and advertisers to find a platform where they can easily shop around for brand partners. Last year, Global Radio Group (UK) rolled out the DAX or Digital Advertising Exchange platform which is essentially a single buying point for brands to purchase ad campaigns across 30 digital platforms, including Absolute Radio, Global’s brands, Mixcloud and Audioboom (AIM:BOOM).

Mike Gordon, Global’s managing director of commercial, told Campaign Live: “This is an incredibly exciting innovation as we are now enabling advertisers to tap into a huge audience they couldn’t previously reach while creating a new revenue stream for digital audio publishers. We are very confident about its potential.”