• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 6, 2006

A decision by Nielsen to alter the calendar used by advertisers and agencies to plan and buy TV advertising time is causing a row on Madison Avenue, prompting the industry's trade association to issue a warning on Monday that the move could lead to rampant confusion between buyers and sellers and increase the number of TV advertising discrepancies beginning with the 2006-07 TV season.

The changes impact the so-called "broadcast calendar," which divides the year into groupings of "broadcast weeks," used by advertisers and agencies to plan, budget and account for their TV advertising schedules. Nielsen has considered revising the calendar, which groups "broadcast months" and "broadcast quarters" into odd combinations of weeks, for several years, and made the change only after surveying a number of major ad agencies, many which have endorsed the move. But some of the biggest have not, causing a rift within the ad industry, and sparking Monday's bulletin from the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

"Normally, the subject of a broadcast calendar does not create a dialogue since somehow these calendars usually all tend to agree. But this year is different; there are at least two different calendars that have been issued within our industry," reads the bulletin, which goes on to note, "It appears that there are some significant differences of opinion relating to what constitutes each broadcast quarter for the upcoming season."

A Nielsen spokesman said the research firm made the change only after surveying what it deemed to be a critical mass of ad agencies, and said it was surprised by the controversy surrounding the changes. But as the AAAA noted, the change has the "potential of creating confusion in terms of which quarter a given week" resides in.

For example, the AAAA noted that under the new broadcast calendar, the week beginning March 26, and ending April 1, 2007, may fall into either the first quarter or the second quarter depending on the systems used by various advertisers, agencies, and media outlets.

"Depending on which broadcast calendar is used, that week could literally fall into different quarters of the year for different television sellers," the AAAA cautioned. "The potential for budget reconciliation confusion and buy comparison confusion is quite large."

One of the major problems is that accounting systems such as Donovan Data Systems, and those used by big media organizations such as Turner Broadcasting Systems, are programmed based on Nielsen's old broadcast calendar.

In an effort to create consistency across the industry, the AAAA recommend using a broadcast calendar originally developed by Madison Avenue during the 1960s, and urged the entire industry to adopt it.

Under the AAAA proposal the broadcast year would be divided this way:

Fourth quarter 2006: September 25 - December 31 (14 weeks)
First quarter 2007: January 1 - March 25 (12 weeks)
Second quarter 2007: March 26 - June 24 (13 weeks)
Third quarter 2007: June 25 - September 30 (14 weeks)
Fourth quarter 2007: October 1 to December 30 (13 weeks)

The changes are also complicated by the fact that many TV sales organizations, including those in cable, spot TV and syndication, currently bill advertising buys based on standard calendar months, not based on either Nielsen's old or new broadcast calendar.

"If they do not continue to bill on the standard media month, every accounting department in our industry will be flooded with discrepancies that are not really discrepant," warned the AAAA.