These are challenging times for media channels. Politics has become increasingly divisive in many countries, leading to accusations of bias from both sides of the divide in how the media reports.

At the beginning of this year, I said I would use the Cog Blog platform to publish some lessons learned over the course of my career. My plan was to do four posts over the year, one a quarter, to try to stick to one key lesson per post, and to use examples. I have been at this a long time (over 50 years) and would have to be a complete fool not to have picked up a few tips along the way. 

A version of this post was published by Mediatel on 9^th August.

I confess to being a fan of Origin, ISBA’s cross-media audience measurement initiative. I believe advertisers’ active involvement in measuring audiences is a good thing – in fact I would go further and say it’s essential. I also think ISBA are leading, clearing the path for others to follow. Before getting into why, it’s important to state that I am not an ISBA member; I’m not involved in Origin in any professional capacity; and I have no inside track. What follows are my thoughts, and mine alone on how such a service might develop.

My only qualifications for even commenting are, first I have been around long enough to remember the launch of several major audience measurement initiatives (including BARB and the TGI) as a user; and I happened to be on stage at the annual asi event in Prague three years ago when Phil Smith, ISBA’s DG launched Origin.

Last week’s post went on a rant about the industry’s obsession with big numbers and our apparent lack of concern over misusing terms. It moved on to discussing how our US friends have got to the point where they are considering multiple currencies to measure video audiences.