The 4CKast: C-K’s weekly podcast.

Welcome to the 4CKast and Happy Birthday to Master of Reality, Ozzy Osborn who was born on December 3, 1948. In his honor, we’re serving up a special Black Sabbath edition of our weekly podcast. Four stories in four minutes. Let’s go!

First up, NBCUniversal is using machine learning to tie ads to relevant moments on TV. The company recently announced CIP–Contextual Intelligence Platform–which analyzes programming scripts and closed captioning data to find synchronistic moments between advertisers and scripts to improve the quality of ad placement. So, say you’re watching a TV show about A National Acrobat, don’t be surprised to see ads for the circus or your local gym. Or, to use a non-Black Sabbath example from the Adweek article, “next time you see, say, a wedding scene on a USA Network show followed by a champagne commercial, it may not be a coincidence.”

The takeaway? Linear TV’s efforts to improve targeting and reporting is good for both advertisers and viewers. We await results of the advertisers currently testing the platform to help show how linear TV can target and be relevant for any content, not just certain networks or programs.

Next up, “OTT Video Viewers Younger, More Engaged.” Unless you’ve been trapped in a Fortress of Solitude^* you won’t be surprised to hear that. But what’s interesting about new research from Nielsen as reported by MediaPost, is where these younger audiences are consuming digital video. Nielsen found that younger audiences are spending an hour on connected TV vs 36 minutes on computer and 24 minutes on mobile, showing that the preferred way to watch video is still the TV. When we look at the connected TV space, we see that 19% of the audience is Adults 25-34 and even higher for Adults 18-24.

The takeaway: For marketers this is important because it gives us extended reach to our traditional TV plans to locate that elusive 18-34 audience.

For Marketers a little Paranoid about Facebook’s viewability reporting and issues, MarketingLand reports that the platform has passed a key hurdle in MRC viewability reporting audit.

Now, with MRC auditing Facebook’s data standards and accountability, there’s a better chance marketers will get charged correctly and rebuild trust.

The takeaway: With the growth of paid advertising on Facebook and measurement accuracy a looming issue, it’s a problem that advertisers have to take into consideration. In time, with more audits like this one, it will be more efficient to advertise on Facebook. 

And finally….After Forever, it appears the pay TV world is understanding that cord cutters and cord never-ers might be more inclined to subscribe to services if it doesn’t involve pesky things like calling companies and scheduling annoying installs. MediaPost recently reported on The New Virtual Pay TV Plan: Do It Yourself noting that AT&T will provide new technology for DirecTV Now, its internet-delivered, linear TV service, that won’t require an install person but instead will be delivered to your door like any other package.