• TVNewser, Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:15 AM

The clock is still ticking for Fox Business Network to release ratings data publicly. As the nascent net passes its six-month anniversary, the FBN will remain in Nielsen's "Access Stage," which prohibits public release of ratings information -- even though it does have internal data. Only when a network becomes a "full service client," can the ratings be released publicly with Nielsen using them as part of its daily reporting.

Gary Holmes, a Nielsen spokesperson, says "that decision is a business decision made by the network. In the life of a network, a time comes when they decide that they want to share the ratings with advertisers." He adds that the process "typically takes a year, year-and-a-half, sometimes two years. There's no time frame." But FBN notes that it has some questions about the data's reliability.

"Given Nielsen's recent accuracy issues, we feel it's best to wait until they can provide some precise degree of illumination on the data they've presented to us, especially given the margin of error on several of their digital measurements," says Paul Rittenberg, the channel's senior vice president of ad sales. "Our number one priority is accountability for advertisers."

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