Facebook Apologizes After Reporting Wrong Viewership Numbers; Overstated Average Time Spent Viewing Videos by 60-80%

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Facebook miscalculated the average time viewers spent watching videos on its site, drawing fire from big ad buyers and marketers. WSJ’s Sarah Rabil joins Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero and explains how the miscalculation happened and the financial impact on both Facebook and its advertisers.

Advertisers choose whether to put their ads on Facebook, YouTube, Google or television. Did the new format hurt the competition and their own advertisers by overstating their video viewership?

Advertisers waste money if viewers only watch for 3 seconds, and when their actual message it 10 seconds into video. If Facebook overestimated how long viewers were watching videos, the advertisers are upset to find that viewers might not have been engaging their message nearly as much as they previously thought.

Madison Avenue is buzzing about Facebook’s major metric mistake, reports CNBC’s Julia Boorstin.




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Sept. 23 — Brian Wieser, Pivotal senior research analyst, discusses Facebook’s discliosure that it has been giving marketers an inflated number for the average time being spent viewing online clips. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier, Matt Miller, Joe Weisenthal and Scarlet Fu on “Bloomberg Markets.”

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