When media buyers want to know how many people saw their ad during Grey's Anatomy, they turn to Nielsen. When the ad is on radio stations like Z100, they turn to Arbitron. When the ad is on CNN.com, perhaps they'll ask comScore. None of these audience measurement services is perfect, and applying accurate quantifiable sums to ratings scores is really a game of "the best worst solution." A new measurement company, then, is trying to combine all of these mediums of media consumption — TV, Internet, radio, movie theatres, DVD … outdoor? — into one happy Excel spreadsheet, which can tell clients how many people caught their marketing message now matter how it was sent out. Pushing a new energy drink on the masses via radio, TV, and airplane banner? They can track it! (Sort of.)

The firm is called Integrated Media Measurement, and it hopes to accomplish all this by using cell phones as data collectors. By having panelists' mobiles listen to audio cues, IMM then uploads the soundbite to its database and matches it against known media, so when somebody's phone hears an TV ad for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, they know Disney's obnoxious new flick about sassy dogs got a hit. Except this ratings strategy, like all others, is absolutely flawed.

And that's because it relies on cell phones, and there are two big problems there. Both of them have to do with audio.

First, not all commercial media has an audio signal. Yes, TV ads carry an audible voiceover or jingle, and dialogue from a movie trailer in a theatre can be input into a database to check against. But what about an outdoor billboard pushing Delta? Or a SUV wrapped in a Red Bull ad? When you drive through the Midtown Tunnel and can't escape the Gap? And when you flip through Vogue, does an ad for L'oreal make a different noise than Covergirl? None of these types of advertising can be measured by audio, which leaves a huge segment of commercial marketing ignored.

And for the ads that do push out audio? Yes, a YouTube viral ad makes a sound, but if your phone is in your pocket, is it going to pick it up and recognize the encoded tracking tag? If you go to the local cineplex and catch the trailer for the new James Bond movie, and you turned your phone off because you are a good samaritan, or you just put it on silent but stuffed it in your muffled bag, will it pick up the necessary signal? Likely not.

So for all the excitement about having an always-on means of measuring every marketing message a civilian gets harassed by throughout his day, the whole gimmick is entirely unreliable. Now, back to the The CW's ratings dart board.