MRC Restores Approval for Nielsen National TV Ratings

In New York, the Media Rating Council (MRC) has reinstated accreditation for Nielsen's National Television Audience Measurement (TAM) service, which it suspended in September 2021. The move comes just in time for the start of the 2023-24 upfront ad planning and buying season.

In August '21 Nielsen had asked the MRC to pause accreditation of the service, after claims it had underreported data during the pandemic. However on September 1st the Board voted in favor of suspending the accreditation and removing the short-lived hiatus designation. The MRC said the suspension reflected 'continuing issues' with the service, as well as the Board's assessment of Nielsen's ability to add broadband-only households into its Local Market metered panels by October that year.

Today's reinstatement excludes the Digital in TV Ratings (dTVR) component of the TAM service, as well as Nielsen's Local Market Television Service, for which accreditation remains officially suspended; the firm's Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) data; the forthcoming integration of certain Return Path and ACR Data into the TAM service; and the Nielsen One cross-media service. All of these remain in the process of MRC audit and review and are not currently accredited.

MRC Executive Director and CEO George W. Ivie (pictured) said in a statement: 'Nielsen has undertaken strong efforts to correct the issues that led to its loss of MRC accreditation 19 months ago and to restore key aspects of its panel performance. The MRC's audit has shown these efforts have been successful, and as a result, our TV Committee and Board agreed that accreditation should be reinstated. That said, there is still more work to be done both in the near and long term to ensure Nielsen's National TAM measurements continue to meet our standards and the requirements of the industry. Specifically, this includes ensuring that the future incorporation of Return Path and ACR Data demonstrates required compliance and transparency to maintain accreditation, continuance of Nielsen's commitments to validate and improve its estimates of the level of Broadband-Only Households in the TAM service and enhancing the disclosures it provides to users about the variability associated with its estimates of television viewing. These latter two commitments were especially critical to our decision to re-apply accreditation at this time'

The restored accreditation does include the non-dTVR elements of the following National TAM reports:

• NTI Pocketpiece and related standard Media Information Tape
• NTI National Audience Demographics and related standard Media Information Tape
• NTIH National Television Audience Media Information Tape
• NHI standard Cable Media Information Tape
• NSS Pocketpiece and related standard Media Information Tape
• NSS National Audience Demographics and related standard Media Information Tape
• NTI, NHI and NSS Average Commercial Minute Media Information Tapes, and
• some parts of the NPower (National Services electronic delivery system)

The restored accreditation may be short-lived: Nielsen One will include the combination of television panel measures with big data, and Ivie stressed that the latter will have to gain compliance too if the combined product is to be accredited. Nielsen has already postponed the launch of the integrated product once due to its own problems with 'variability' and 'stability' issues.

The MRC, which currently audits around 110 research products, is online at www.mediaratingcouncil.org .