For anyone interested in these community insights, Comscore offers a set of interactive maps that anyone can use. The maps offer a graphic way to explore community commonalities, and differences, revealing the complex diversity that defines America. A key insight that becomes readily apparent from even a cursory exploration of the maps is that anyone relying on national level aggregated viewership data when placing messaging into any given local market is unlikely to get optimal results, underscoring the value of Comscore’s innovative locally-focused audience viewership approach.

The maps are designed to complement our solutions with their local audience viewership approach by offering several versions, including the two pictured below which offer users the choice of engaging with Comscore Markets at either the state or county level:

Comscore Markets are the set of 210 zip-code based local market definitions used in linear television and digital media, providing precise universe estimates for standardized linear, digital, and cross-platform media. Comscore Markets maps are also ideally suited to assist advocacy groups and political causes to gain insights into differing groups at the state or county levels, to allow pinpointed messaging to an intended audience, and to enable civic organizations like libraries, educational institutions, chambers of commerce and more to use and share the maps for informational and educational purposes that benefit their organizations and members.

The county level version of our map provides detailed information about each Comscore Market, including television stations in that market and county-level insights revealing the differing ways that community-segmented groups consume media at the local level. Our Blog Post entitled Addressing today’s challenges and opening new opportunities for media including Local TV explains how this map, enriched with data from the ACP, offers insights that Broadcasters and cable networks can use to feature their local reach down to the community level, and that advertisers can use to fine-tune their channel mix to reach their best audiences. We frequently publish jointly authored research studies with the ACP that highlight what we are learning from our collaboration, which studies are often featured in social tiles like this one to share and spread the reach of those insights:

The state level version of our interactive map offers other geographic insights, enabling groups or organizations engaged in activities like statewide elections or ballot initiatives to gain insights into the best media markets for the placement of messaging to reach their target audiences. Counterintuitively, in some states the media markets offering the right coverage, at the best price, might actually be centered in an adjacent state, but with our state map you can locate the right media market at a glance. The StreetFight article entitled Why Granular Voter Data Matters to Ad Buyers discusses and explains one example of this: “A large portion of media viewers in western Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District are serviced by the Denver media market.” Here's a graphic showing the example described:

In addition to the two maps discussed above, we also offer a third version of the Comscore Markets map for anyone interested in understanding which zip codes fall within each media market. To find that map, just look for the tile pictured below at this link and request a download:

We also use these maps to provide valuable insights for social outreach programs. For example, Comscore’s Halo Initiative is our public commitment to responsible media, and the reporting associated with that initiative shares research, insights and tools such as our maps to counter disruptions in the media landscape caused by the drop in advertising on reliable News programming. There, we cite the empirical data demonstrating that advertising on reliable News platforms offers significant benefits due to the News Halo Effect - a phenomenon whereby the confidence that reliable News platforms instill in their audience extends an aura of reliability to their advertisers. Look for more insights like this to come from our Halo and other initiatives.

We encourage everyone to try our free maps, then spread the word to others who might benefit from them. If you have questions or need guidance regarding the Comscore Market maps or the Halo Initiative, please contact me here.