Understanding how consumers engage with media is often a matter of understanding specific terms for each medium. The comparable metrics report is an in-depth look at users and usage, averaged across the U.S. population-with the purpose of aligning methodologies and metrics to display an “apples to apples” view of consumption across TV, radio, TV-connected devices, PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
The fourth-quarter 2015 report sets aside metrics commonly associated with only one type of content, such as video starts or page views, and focuses instead on three basic concepts equally applicable to all categories of media measurement:
In addition to measuring how many, how often, and how long of these platforms among adults by age race and ethnicity, we have broken out digital measurement into video, streaming audio, and social networking, viewed as subsets of the totals listed for each category. The report distills all platforms down to an average audience figure and allows us to view everything in the context of usage within the average minute.
Media usage continues moving to mobile including smartphones and tablets, and to TV-connected devices. From November 2014 to November 2015, the total average audience across nearly all platforms grew by nearly 5 million among persons 18+. In fact, the largest increase in average audience came from smartphones.