NBCU’s Chairman, Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships Linda Yaccarino said “measurement is an absolute acute crisis” in an interview this morning at IAB MIXX. Yaccarino said that by NBCU’s calculations, it believes somewhere between 12%-30% of its viewership is now unmeasured, resulting in NBCU leaving a lot of advertising money on the table. Yaccarino noted that while there’s progress in measuring new forms of video viewing, it’s been way too slow and is not keeping up with market demands.

One of the key issues for Yaccarino is out-of-home viewing, and she used CNBC as an example. This week CNBC will cease using Nielsen ratings as the basis for its daytime ad sales, instead turning to Cogent Reports, as was reported earlier this year. Yaccarino observed how CNBC’s upscale, business-savvy audience is often watching the network in offices and other locations that are beyond Nielsen’s measurement. In fact she said Nielsen’s CNBC sample consists of just 9 homes.

More broadly, Yaccarino spoke to how C3 ratings are becoming less important across the board for NBCU’s networks, as the focus shifts to outcomes for clients. NBCU views its sales staff as “utility consultants” who must be fluent in both the technology side (data and analytics in particular) as well respect “the art of content.”

For Yaccarino, a key part of enabling her sales team to be successful is to have all of the data to support ROIs. Fundamentally this is why the inability to measure all viewership across all platforms and services is so critical. She called for the industry to come together to address the measurement issue.

Yaccarino also highlighted NBCU’s deal to distribute clips on AOL, and its announcement of Toyota as launch sponsor, as examples of how content, data and distribution are coming together to drive new value for NBCU. Discussing how far things have evolved, Yaccarino said that internally, "we don’t really talk about ‘TV’ anymore, instead we talk about ‘video technology.’''