• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 11, 2007

For the second time in two days, Nielsen Thursday called on its clients to help it deal with the vagaries of tracking and identifying TV ad units for its new commercial ratings. The requests, which Nielsen is making at the behest of auditors working with industry ratings watchdog the Media Rating Council, are making some clients nervous that Nielsen's methods for producing TV commercial ratings may not be as buttoned up as the research firm has implied they would be when they are officially rolled out at the end of this month, just as upfront ad negotiations are expected to begin in earnest.

In Thursday's request, Nielsen asked clients to begin notifying it when they air "certain non-traditional commercial formats" that might not be detected by its automated monitoring systems. Specifically, Nielsen asked TV outlets to give it notice when they run so-called "text crawls" or "tickertapes" that appear on the screen during a TV commercial.

Such text crawls are most commonly used by news and sports channels such as CNN, CNBC and ESPN, and a Nielsen spokesman estimated about a dozen networks are primarily involved.

In letters sent to clients on Thursday, Nielsen said the text crawls "can disrupt the automated commercial match process" utilized by its Monitor-Plus service, which is the keystone of its new commercial ratings system.

Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes said the request, as well as one made to cable networks on Wednesday asking them to begin providing Nielsen with their commercial advertising logs, are formalities required by the MRC's auditors Ernst & Young as part of the process of accrediting Monitor-Plus to be used as part of a TV ratings service.

"We currently think that we do know who is using these particular formats, but we were advised during the audit to send out letters requesting that we are formally notified," Holmes said, adding, "The reason it's happening now is that the clients asked us to go to the MRC and get audited and the auditor asked us to formally request these things."

Not everyone sees the requests, nor their timing, as mere formalities.

"There is a whole laundry list of issues, most of which they say, 'We will take care of,'" said Tim Brooks, senior vice president-research at Lifetime Television.

Brooks said the problem is that the system Nielsen is using to identify commercials in the new ratings system, Monitor-Plus, was not designed for processing ratings and it is essentially being retrofitted to handle the task. "Fitting it to a purpose for which it was not intended is going to take time. Unfortunately, Nielsen has rushed the implementation of the system so much that they're going to sell the data in the fourth quarter so people can post on it," said Brooks, noting that the timing coincides with that annual TV buying season.

The new ratings will be released May 31 for the month of May, with new monthly installments issued at the end of June, July and August, before it is introduced as a syndicated ratings product in September.

The questions surrounding the validity of the new ratings are causing confusion in this year's upfront advertising marketplace, which is expected to lead to a wide range of TV ratings guarantees for next year's deals. Some networks will likely agree to deals based on Nielsen's average minute commercial ratings, while some are likely to defer them until the ratings are proven stable and dependable.

Nielsen's Holmes said the ratings firm does not anticipate any additional requests will be made for additional information from clients to help with the process.