The future success of audience research could be defined by the industry’s ability to offer data transparency, but reaching that lofty goal might be difficult to achieve in the short run, executives said during a panel session Wednesday at the TV Data Summit.

Executives speaking at the Data Analytics: TV's New Table Stakes panel, said that while there’s a lot of TV data available, deciphering what through the numbers to determine the most efficient data remains difficult.

“When we look at TV data we see retaining ID’s that couldn’t possibly be the same ID’s over and over again,” said Beth Logan, chief data scientist for dataxu. “I think what we really have to do is be really vigilant about checking those metrics.”

Added Ben Tatta, co-founder & president of 605, a television data and analytics company: “We need to do more on the transparency side. It takes a lot to make a data set representative, whether its representative nationally, or representative of the household. Blending the data sets together to get a more holistic view is essential, but I also think the method by which that happens needs to be disclosed.

Dativa CTO and chief data scientist Tom Weiss also said that its extremely difficult to be transparent given all of the information available. “We have to be transparent but we’re not mature and stable enough where we can expect everyone doing this to be at the same level of understanding," he said.

Added Tatta: “Its wonderful that there’s as variety of data sets that are available, and there’s a lot of companies with really smart people managing that,” Tatta said. “In the past there’s been a hesitancy to reveal [methodology] that because that’s our secret sauce, but at the same time I think it’s really important to have full transparency with clients.”

Read More: Complete Coverage of the TV Data Summit

With regard to analytic transparency, Roku’s head of ad and programming research Dan Robbins said the industry is “getting better at” but still has a ways to go. "I don’t think we’re there yet but we spend a lot of time trying to be diligent and rigorous about making sure that folks that we partner with have a good sense of what’s going on,” he said. 

New York – With the ink on its carriage deal with Charter Communications not dry yet, Viacom’s chief data officer and EVP Kern Schireson told an audience at the Multichannel News/B&C TV Data Summit here that the pact, details of which have not been released, could serve as a blueprint for future deals.

Read More: Complete Coverage of the TV Data Summit

In characteristically vague language – programmers and distributors are typically contractually obligated to keep the details of carriage deals under wraps – Schireson told B&C business editor Jon Lafayette during an NYC Television Week keynote that the new deal builds on work Charter and Viacom have been conducting for a while.

“There was an ongoing conversation with Charter about the opportunity for these two businesses to work together and to connect some dots and work more efficiently,” Schireson said. “There are things MVPDs do uniquely well, there are capabilities and assets they have, and there are things on the publisher side in the way they transact and run their businesses that are also unique and valuable. Those things have been held at arm’s length from one another.

“Historically, publishers and MVPDs have gone to the table and treated it as zero-sum game – I give you a dollar more, that’s a dollar less for me; you get more stacking rights, you get a different flexibility around channel positioning and packaging, I make less money,” he continued. “I think what we were able to do, because of the run up to the deal and the history and intent of both of these companies, we were able to do something that when the details emerge, a lot of folks are going to look at as a potential blueprint for how to not make this a zero-sum game, and how to really work in partnership to make the TV ecosystem bigger and better and more efficient and to position ourselves for the future in a way that is going to allow us to compete more effectively with some of the folks outside the TV ecosystem that are going after the same dollars.”

Schireson didn’t provide any details, but given his position and Viacom’s past deals that have had an advanced ad component, it is likely that would be a big part of the most recent transaction.

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Viacom and Charter said Oct. 17 they had reached an agreement in principle. The deal is expected to be finalized shortly.

Some reports have said the new deal will involve Charter having to carry fewer channels -- Reuters and the Wall Street Journal said Thursday (Oct. 20) that Charter will carry eight of Viacom’s nearly two dozen channels on its basic tier, with the remainder carried on more expensive packages.