• by Wayne Friedman , September 9, 2009

Nielsen will move to live-program-plus-same-day ratings in local people meter markets starting this December.

In local people-meter markets -- and those with set-top boxes -- Nielsen will eliminate live-only program ratings data. The company will offer live-program-plus-same-day of DVR playback viewing measurement as the standard data stream available overnight.

Nielsen says its local television clients have been unanimous in making this request.

TV sales and buying executives say this is partly the result of a rejection by media buyers of the local live plus three days of DVR playback (L3) that was introduced to local people meter TV stations back in January.

It turns out that live-plus-same-day ratings -- at least on the national TV level -- are closer, mathematically, to commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback (C3).

National TV advertisers have used C3 ratings for a couple of years in buying commercial time on national TV programs. Major advertisers say commercial ratings are better-suited to determining how their TV messaging performs. Local TV advertisers would like the same metrics.

Nielsen does not offer C3 rating for local TV stations, due to the prohibited expense of monitoring 10,000 or more local cable systems. Nielsen would have to set up systems to identify local cable TV ads sold across dozens of ad-supported national cable networks.

Still, Sara Erichson, president of media client services for Nielsen Media Research North America, says one way to quicken local C3 ratings would be for advertisers to encode their commercials -- just as TV producers do for programs. Right now, Nielsen is testing commercial encoding.

Recently, TiVo said it was starting up the first-of-a-kind commercial ratings service local markets: San Francisco, Orlando and Tucson. The local TiVo service will glean second-by-second, set-top-box data, which is converted into the C3 data. But TiVo service has limitations, as the data will determine just overall viewership, with no specific viewer demographic breakdowns.

In addition to the live-plus-same-day ratings, Nielsen will continue to deliver live-program-plus-three days of DVR playback and live-program-plus seven days of DVR playback, which are available five and eight days later, respectively.

Nielsen currently measures the top 21 local markets using local people-meter technology, with plans for a total of 25 markets by 2010. There are 35 markets with older set-meter technology.

Moving to live-plus-same-day ratings helps standardize much TV research and data regarding DVR playback. Nielsen says, for example, that on average, 63% of all playback occurs on the same day that a program is recorded. Looking at data closer to an original live airing, of viewers 25-54, 19% of playback occurs within 5 minutes, 28% within 15 minutes, and 42% within one hour.

Nielsen's December 2009 plan does not address data streams in diary markets. All diary market data are currently based on a live-program-plus 24-hour data stream. Nielsen recommends that diary measurement convert to live program-plus-same-day to make it more consistent with all local market reporting.

Nielsen will also go to live-plus-same-day ratings locally for total view sources and electronic data files. Live-plus-same-day ratings will be delivered to clients after each sweep period -- about two weeks after the close of the measurement period.