Challenge: Media Cos. Take On Nielsen

by Wayne Friedman , August 14, 2009

boxing gloves

Major U.S. media companies, TV marketers and media agencies are putting together a massive joint effort to create a new TV ratings service to compete with Nielsen Media Research, the company that has had a virtual monopoly in the business for decades.

A report in the Financial Times says that NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery Communications and Walt Disney -- along with big advertisers Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and AT&T -- will participant in the venture.

The largest U.S.-based media agencies are also involved, including Group M (owned by WPP) and Starcom MediaVest Group.

The consortium is expected to hire operational companies to measure key set-top box data as well as cross-platform viewership among new digital video/TV sources. A service could launch as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

Through the years, a number of complaints have surrounded Nielsen data, from accuracy of its ratings to response rates of its TV panels, to not providing enough return on investment information for advertisers.

Dissatisfaction has escalated with the growth of new digital TV/video platforms. Advertisers are frustrated in their attempts to meld all viewing data for easier analysis.

Executives close to the new venture say this is not about replacing Nielsen as the longtime TV currency between media and advertisers. Sam Armando, senior vice president of audience analysis at Starcom Mediavest, told FT the plan did not require a "leap of faith. The most deficient thing is there's no single source measurement [for TV and digital video]."

The proposed consortium is not the first time major efforts have been made to combat Nielsen.

In the mid-1990s, major broadcast networks, a number of large cable networks, and 14 advertisers and ad agencies including AT&T, BBDO Worldwide, Leo Burnett and General Motors rallied behind the SMART initiative -- Systems for Measuring and Reporting Television.

Earlier in that decade, the U.K.-based ARB Television Research also tried to start a new TV rating service.

Neither effort was able to secure enough support from a broader consensus of the TV industry, and both failed.

media measurement, tv

6 comments about "Challenge: Media Cos. Take On Nielsen ".

Check to receive email when comments are posted.

Howie Goldfarb from Blue Star Strategic Marketing, August 17, 2009 at 1:27 p.m.
About time. Neilsen ratings are a bunch of baloney. And even this new effort is going to be flawed. I fall alseep with my TV on yet I get counted as eyeballs once snoozing. When I watch a football game and I get up for another beer and miss the commercials I get counted. If I am on my laptop not paying attention to the TV on in front of me I am counted. If I have people over and the TV is on and we start talking and stop watching I am still counted.
It is impossible to know how many people are watching unless you have spy cameras in the TV room! So basically brands/advertisers get screwed and Agencies and Neilsen make bank.
Reply

Rob Frydlewicz from DentsuAegis, August 17, 2009 at 2:14 p.m.

It's heartening to read that after shelling out boatloads of money to Nielsen as part of the cost of doing business these companies still have a little bit left over to invest in perhaps even better research. God bless 'em!

Robin Laylin from Microsoft, August 17, 2009 at 6:25 p.m.

This will be interesting theater, as marketers, buyers and sellers make strange bedfellows when it comes to codifying how to measure audiences.

Melissa Pollak from National Science Foundation, August 17, 2009 at 11:11 p.m.

I wouldn't assume that (1) Nielsen numbers are terrible, or (2) using set top box data will yield more a more accurate measurement of TV viewership.

If the industry really wants to improve the quality of data on what people are watching, it may want to think about investing its resources in educating the general public about how surveys work and their role in determining the quality of data collected by organizations such as Nielsen.

John Grono from GAP Research, August 18, 2009 at 2:26 a.m.

Spot on Melissa. After all STB data is really tuning data and not viewing data. It's analagous to returning to HH ratings rather than demographic ratings.

And to Howie's point, if you go to bed and turn the screen off but not the STB ... last channel watched gets credited with an awful lot of tuning! Nielsen edited this sort of crap data out - I hope this mob do as well.

M Cohen from marshall cohen associates, August 18, 2009 at 11:56 a.m.

It was UK based AGB. Not ARB. And for the record, MTV Networks and CBS both supported them.