Big TV Networks Seek Alternatives to Nielsen Ratings
By Movieguide® Contributor
Several major entertainment networks, including NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery, want to partner with alternative ratings groups to Nielsen.
Deadline’s Dade Hayes reported:
Media ratings consortium OpenAP and the Video Advertising Bureau, have formed a joint committee with TV giants Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery, with the goal of pushing alternatives to Nielsen numbers.
In an announcement, the committee said the goal is “to enable multiple currencies with the primary focus of creating a measurement certification process to establish the suitability of emerging cross-platform measurement solutions in advance of the 2024 upfront.”
…In a joint statement, CEOs Jeff Shell of NBCU, Bob Bakish of Paramount, Wade Davis of TelevisaUnivision and David Zaslav of WBD expressed optimism about the potential of their collaboration. “The sustainability of the premium video advertising model depends on an ecosystem for measurement that is transparent, independent, inclusive, and accurately reflects the way all people consume premium video content today – across multiple screens, connections, and devices,” the statement said. “By coming together to establish this JIC, we can collaborate and accelerate the efforts to implement a new multi-currency future that fosters more competition, inclusivity and innovation and will ultimately better serve advertisers, agencies and consumers.”
This determination on the part of major networks has grown out of a debate originating with a challenge to the reliability of Nielsen’s COVID years coverage of television viewership.
“I am conveying to you in the strongest possible terms the VAB’s profound dissatisfaction and concerns with Nielsen’s handling of our industry’s months-long urging for rightsized remedies to shortfalls in the company’s COVID period TV usage and measurement data,” Sean Cunningham, the CEO of the VAB wrote in a letter to David Kenny, the CEO of Nielsen.
Variety’s Brian Steinberg reported in April 2021:
At issue, according to the networks, is a Nielsen decision to keep its field agents out of the homes that participate in the company’s measurement process. The networks are concerned that Nielsen did not maintain its outreach to panelists whose activity it uses to monitor viewing of TV programs, and also believe Nielsen counted homes that residents may have left during the pandemic as Americans relocated to be closer to family. In the letter, Cunningham said the networks believe Nielsen’s tabulations included a slight increase of “zero-viewing TV homes” and that Nielsen was grappling with “a 20 percent loss of the panel” during the pandemic.
What the outcome of this ongoing debate will be is hard to say, but viewers are likely to see critical developments on this issue throughout 2023, as they sit down to watch a sports event or stream a film or series.
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