The Global Video Measurement Alliance (GVMA) has added four new members, BBC Studios, WildBrain Spark, Digitas and Weber Shandwick. GVMA is an industry coalition backed by Tubular Labs to standardize measurement for digital video viewership and engagement. GVMA uses Tubular Audience Ratings, which measures de-duplicated unique audiences and minutes watched on Facebook and YouTube.

In an interview, Tubular’s CRO Denis Crushell noted that social video can be a confusing space for both media companies and ad buyers to understand. Tubular Audience Ratings is tracking social video usage of millions of video creators to become a neutral third-party currency for social video.  As Denis said, “we want to empower media companies to get credit for their audiences on social platforms and buyers to transact with more transparency.”

An analysis last Fall commissioned by Tubular estimated approximately $13 billion of untapped revenue potential for digital video publishers.

A critical value is de-duplicating audiences to understand distinct viewership on social platforms. As an example, Denis shared data that in July, 2020, “The Late Late Show with James Corden” had 30 million viewers on YouTube and 9.5 million viewers on Facebook, with an overlap of just 2 million. This type of insight can help Corden’s team optimize where to focus.

It’s not just the audience size but also its engagement, as measured by minutes watched per unique viewer, that media companies are focusing on in social media. This reflects the changing view of social from primarily a promotional platform for longer viewing elsewhere (e.g. linear, VOD) to also being where longer consumption occurs. Being able to track that consumption is then critical to monetizing it.

A report earlier this week revealed how NBC News has been has transitioned YouTube from strictly promotion to augmenting consumption to drive millions of dollars in new revenue. Tubular has measured NBC News getting 40+ minutes per unique viewer per clip.

Tubular measures content across all continents and Denis said Tubular Audience Ratings offers breakouts by country for the U.S., France and Brazil currently, with the U.K. and Germany available in the next few months and more international expansion to follow. Other GVMA members include Viacom, Discovery, Ellen Digital Network, Corus Entertainment, VICE, BuzzFeed, Group Nine Media, Freeda, Mattel and Brut. GVMA plans to announce more buy side partners this year.