• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 6, 2009

Amid negative economic news, and in the wake of a substantial workforce reduction, Nielsen Co. last week revealed data indicating that the quality of its national people meter sample - the core of its TV ratings system - has hit a new high. The data, which looks at two key measures of the sample's quality, and industry developed index known as the Sample Performance Indicator (SPI), and another, the "in-tab" rate, which shows the percentage of households and people who producing data that can be tabulated in Nielsen's ratings, indicate that years of improvements Nielsen has made to its people meter technology, methodology, sample recruiting, and field support are paying off in quality dividends.

The SPI, an extremely rigorous measure that factors the percentage of people who were originally solicited to join the sample that are actually in it, and are producing useable data, hit a five-year high of 45.2% for the week ended March 29th, Nielsen said in a client communiqué issued late last week.

The household in-tab rate for its national people meter sample hit 94.8%, and the persons in-tab rate reached 91.9% for the same week, and was actually slightly higher, reaching a five-year high, the preceding week (ended March 22nd).

Nielsen executives attributed the gains to a combination of measures that began years ago, but which are finally paying off, including a new version of the "A/P" (active/passive) meter that is the heart of Nielsen's ratings system, as well as improvements in sampling and recruiting methods that have been more effective at identifying the right kind of people to approach to join the Nielsen sample, and then offering them the best possible incentives for them to sign up and continue cooperating and providing useable data.

Nielsen President Dave Thomas said the pay-off is the result of ten years of investments by Nielsen, and that all but the most involved Nielsen clients may not be aware of the improvements.

"The core research group - the people who are really involved and engaged with the issues - I think they understand the improvements and what's been going on here. They understand how challenging it is to get that additional percentage point, or tenth of a percentage point of improvement, and how important that is," he said, adding, that many of the end-users of Nielsen data, media planners, buyers, and advertisers, understand the importance of the data, but may not have been aware of the improvements that have been made.

One factor that Nielsen executives are not clear on is the role the economy might be playing in boosting cooperation levels among its panelists.

They acknowledged that rising unemployment may mean that more ratings panel members have more time on their hands, and may be placing a higher value on the money they receive from Nielsen - called "incentives" in TV ratings parlance - to participate in the sample.

That money can be significant for certain hard-to-reach demographic and lifestyle groups, and in recent years has been high enough that Nielsen has had to issue statements to the Internal Revenue Service declaring its incentive payments as freelance income.