Nielsen Canceled Assembly To Focus on Lifting Suspension of Backing for Nationwide Rankings

The TV business’s hottest yardstick stays damaged — not less than for now.

Nielsen’s long-utilized nationwide TV scores have but to regain business backing after the measurement large requested to cancel a gathering slated to happen Monday the place it was imagined to show its efforts to enhance its capability to depend TV viewers, in response to an individual conversant in the matter.

Nielsen on November 9 requested to postpone a November 14 assembly of the audit committee of the Media Score Council, this individual says. MRC, an business watchdog, holds measurement organizations to requirements on behalf of the media sector. Nielsen was scheduled to stipulate the way it had upgraded its expertise that gauges TV audiences. MRC suspended its accreditation for Nielsen’s nationwide scores in September of 2021, citing findings that confirmed Nielsen had undercounted viewership through the coronavirus pandemic attributable to lapses in surveillance of its expertise. A communication to TV networks concerning the postponed committee assembly stated Nielsen had proven “materials non-compliance,” this individual stated.

“It’s profoundly disappointing that somebody has shared a confidential doc that presents just one facet of the story of our ongoing engagement on Nielsen’s Nationwide TV service,:” stated David Gunzerath, senior vp and affiliate director of the MRC, in an announcement despatched Saturday. “Whereas it’s true the present suspension of MRC accreditation stays in place on the present time, additionally it is true that we imagine Nielsen has made vital progress on a lot of the points that led to that suspension, and MRC continues to actively work with Nielsen on a path to handle the remaining points so {that a} consideration of reinstatement of accreditation to the Nationwide TV service could happen comparatively quickly.”

A Nielsen spokeswoman referred a question to the MRC. A spokesman for the MRC was unable to touch upon whether or not Nielsen requested to postpone or cancel a November 14 assembly or on communications between the MRC committee and its members. The standing of Nielsen’s suspension was beforehand reported by Advert Age.

Revelation of the canceled assembly is the newest salvo in a months-long joust between TV networks and the corporate that has lengthy tabulated its viewership, and is the newest signal of the determined want of the TV business to discover a new supply of measurement as its audiences mild out for digital territory. The TV networks, desperate to show to Madison Avenue that they nonetheless have clout with viewers who’re transferring to streaming retailers, alleged in 2021 that Nielsen modified protocols through the coronavirus pandemic, leading to an undercounting of the TV viewers.

Whereas Nielsen has pledged to rectify the matter, the networks haven’t been happy. Certainly, a lot of them began working with a slate of measurement upstarts, together with iSpot, Comscore and VideoAmp, and made offers within the business’s latest upfront market that included benchmarks primarily based on these corporations’ findings. NBCUniversal stated in June, for instance, that greater than 40% of its upfront offers relied on issues apart from conventional age and gender parameters, in contrast with about 20% final yr.

Even with the suspension in place, Nielsen has begun crafting measurement offers with a number of the networks’ digital rivals. In latest weeks, Nielsen has unveiled pacts which have it preserving tabs on audiences for Alphabet’s YouTube TV; Netflix’s new ad-supported subscription tier; and Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Evening Soccer.” In March, Nielsen agreed to be taken below non-public possession by a bunch led by Evergreen Coast Capital Company, an affiliate of activist fund Elliott Funding Administration L.P., which has been lobbying for a Nielsen sale, and Brookfield Enterprise Companions L.P., in a deal that known as for an all-cash deal of $16 billion.

Simply as Nielsen typically clashes with its TV companions over viewers counts, it has discovered itself at odds with Amazon over simply how many individuals are watching the e-commerce large’s new streaming model of the NFL’s Thursday matches. Nielsen’s depend of viewers is decrease than the outlet’s — a distinction of tabulation that may affect how a lot advertisers can be prepared to pay to seem alongside the pigskin showcase.