“It’s not necessarily the publisher’s fault because there are so many touchpoints that they might not know themselves,” he said. More hops in the chain mean more opportunities for miscommunication or more opportunities for fraudsters to intervene.
Though Kramer said fraud might cause impressions to fire on an otherwise off TV, a second buyer requesting anonymity who also tracks the problem said that the root of the issue is the technological challenges of different devices communicating with each other. As such, doing direct deals with publishers wouldn’t necessarily help.
You have to look at several different data points. Right now, you have to do investigative work
Matthew Kramer, head of brand investment, MediaMonks
That buyer said that the rate of ads airing with the TV off from external devices has decreased markedly from last year, though wouldn’t share specifics.
These results came after the buyer’s agency worked with publishers to present “are you still watching” labels to viewers after three or four hours of viewing.
Two other buyers blamed the problem partially on publishers seeking to pad their bottom lines with wasted impressions.
Whatever is to blame, some industry insiders aren’t sure how long TV-off ads will plague the industry. Smart TVs, where ads airing with the TV off are less of a problem, continue to gain market share against external devices. Viewing time on Smart TVs grew 31% between the second quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2021, while connected TV device viewing only increased by 7.8%, according to streaming media intelligence firm Conviva.
“I think this problem will phase itself out,” said Shailin Dhar, founder of digital advertising measurement firm Method Media Intelligence.
A lack of data points
Buyers keen to know how much they are wasting on ads airing when the TV is off still have trouble finding one single source of truth.
MediaMonks deduced TV off rates by comparing automatic content recognition data from smart TVs, data that shows what is playing on a smart TV and data from set boxes.
“There doesn’t seem to be one silver bullet,” Kramer said. “You have to look at several different data points. Right now, you have to do investigative work.”
Some ad-tech firms are working on solutions. iSpot, for example, developed a tool to measure how many impressions ran when TVs were off, which was released in beta in October 2022 and more widely in the first quarter of this year.