Nielsen Says Industry Rules Bar It From Including Digital Viewers In TV Ratings
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Nielsen‘s firing back at critics, including media execs, who say that the ratings agency fails to count people who watch TV on digital platforms. It can count them — and even include them in audience tallies. But networks and advertisers won’t let them, EVP Global Product Leadership Megan Clarken said today at an NYC summit by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement.
“Live viewing on the TV set is in decline — make no mistake,” she says. But the ratings are “an agreed set of rules that the industry came up with” and presented to Nielsen in a 136-page book last revised in 2006. “It’s a very boring read.”
It says that Nielsen only can count viewers for shows that originate on TV. The company can only include people who watch over a certain number of days (live, three or seven). Nielsen has to exclude viewers who watch on a non-TV platform if the program doesn’t have an identical ad load. And the show needs a linear watermark.
The last criteria makes counting viewers on streaming services a “pain in the ass,” she says. “Netflix and their counterparts strip the watermark.”
The measurement company is working with Adobe on ways to tag shows, which should be ready to go live in Q4.
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Nielsen asked the TV industry in November to look at ways to redefine the ratings. “That piece of work is going on” while the company puts together total audience measurements.
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“It is not a product. It’s a framework” using a consistent methodology, she says. “We can’t create some sort of Frankenmetric.”
Media execs have taken a lot of shots at Nielsen as they’ve seen ratings fall, especially on cable. For example, Fox COO Chase Carey said in February that “there are issues in terms of the accuracy measurement” as viewing moves “to places that aren’t being captured and adequately measured today.” And Viacom says it hopes to have half of its ad sales be “non-Nielsen dependent” within three years.
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12 Comments
Nielsen is going to be irrelevant in about 5 years. Technology has outpaced the studio’s need for their measuring services. “Pain in the ass?” This sounds like my grandparents complaining about their “internet not working.” It’s an old company that serves an old business model and I’m sure it will still be lucrative a little while longer because old people find it more convenient/familiar to watch anything that CBS puts on the air “live.”
Little kids are already watching everything via built-in apps, their teenage siblings don’t watch a goddamn thing “live” anymore and certainly not on a giant tv in a living room. And soon the parents and grandparents will be trained in the ways of the Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Google Chromecast or any of the dozen other streaming devices for viewing “tv shows.”
- johnc
Nielsen ignores viewers who do not watch live TV. They are way behind the technologies.
Nielsen would be irrelevant soon if it insists on staying the same, like many companies who went out of business before them.
- blakecolby1
Again this nonsense. You can expect delusional fans to peddle it, but Deadline should know better.
Why on Earth should Nielsen include digital viewers in TV ratings? What’s next? DVD viewers who watch one year after the original TV airdate?
The whole purpose of TV ratings – the very reason they exist – is to determine pricing for advertising that TV networks air during the breaks in the shows.
TV ratings are not a popularity contest.
Digital platforms already know how many people stream the shows and they price their ads (if they stream any) accordingly.
Who does a cumulative total of viewers on all distribution platforms serve except for delusional fans who want to argue that a TV network needs to renew their favorite low-rated show despite losing money on it, because it gets more viewers on Hulu?
Stupidity.
- psst
Actually, digital platforms do carry live programming (broadcast and cable networks alike) and so are extremely relevant to advertisers looking to buy in the live, +3, and +7 windows.
ratings are going down cause most of the shows SUCK! not because Nielsen is not counting viewers. They aren’t there to begin with and its easier to blame Nielsen because the average schmuck doesn’t understand statistics and scientific polling than admit your tv show SUCKS!!!
- terrence
bullshit. change the fuckin’ rules.
- fergdoug
If you change the rules, you risk ruining the game. It’s not about the desires of the audience. The audience is the product being sold to the advertisers.
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