• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 16, 2004

Like many issues involving Nielsen these days, there seems to be a lot of finger-pointing surrounding the issue of commercial TV ratings. Advertisers are blaming Nielsen for the lack of them. Nielsen is blaming their ad agencies for not stepping forward to support them. And agencies are blaming Nielsen for not offering to provide them in a way that would have any genuine market utility.

The debate is ongoing, but picked up steam last week during the Association of National Advertisers annual Television Advertising Forum in New York, where the ANA released a survey of its members showing near unanimity in their desire for TV commercial ratings. Ninety-six percent of ANA members said they're "interested" in having them; 85 percent said they're interested in making them the "market currency."

That would represent a profound shift in the TV advertising model, which is currently based on the average audience generated by a TV program, not by the TV commercials airing inside them. Program ratings are based on the mid-minute of the average quarter-hour rating.

Over the past several years, the major ad agencies have begun conducting analyses based on so-called minute-by-minute ratings, which get closer to commercial ratings, but are not refined enough to measure the exact audience of a TV commercial. These analyses, however, have shown enough fluctuation in the ratings between programming and commercial breaks to whet Madison Avenue's appetite for more.

Nielsen said it offered to provide ad agencies more, but they balked because of the price associated with the data.

"Many agencies felt the costs were too high," said Paul Donato, senior vice president-chief research officer, during a panel discussion at the forum following the release of the ANA survey on TV commercial ratings. Donato implied that Nielsen offered a solution and was rebuffed because of their own economics. In the days following the forum, Nielsen executives continued to make this point, noting that Nielsen offered to sell its respondent-level data tapes--including minute-by-minute ratings--to the major ad shops, but was rebuffed.

"Their clients are complaining that Nielsen won't provide the data, but when we offered it to agencies, they said it was too expensive," Nielsen spokesman Jack Loftus, told MediaDailyNews. "It's one thing to say the data is too expensive. It's another thing to tell your clients you can't get it."

Agency executives rejected that assertion--noting that the product Nielsen actually pitched them would not provide actual TV commercial ratings and wasn't much better than what they can now access (in a cumbersome way) through an existing Nielsen service, N-Power, which many of the top agencies use to analyze minute-by-minute ratings.

"We're already accessing that," said Susan Nathan, senior vice president-director of media knowledge at Universal McCann, noting: "The reality is that the way they measure what goes into a 60-second unit makes it literally impossible to provide what amounts to a commercial rating."

The problem, she explained, is that the way Nielsen currently collects its data provides a snapshot of average minutes, not actual commercial ratings. "It's a plurality of the tune-in," she said.

The process is further complicated by the editing rules Nielsen uses to credit commercial audiences, said Tony Jarvis, senior vice president-director of strategic insights at MediaCom Worldwide. Currently, he said Nielsen credits any minute that has even a fraction of commercial in it--as little as one second of commercial time--as a commercial minute.

"In other words," he said, "one second could make a commercial minute."

Jarvis said this raises big issues for developing a TV advertising marketplace structure based on commercial minutes. Should commercial ratings be based on ratings for individual commercials, as they are in some markets outside the United States, or should they be based on the average rating of all the commercials in a commercial pod, as they are in other markets outside the United States?

"If we are going to do this, we had better put our thinking caps on as to what is a commercial rating. Is it the actual commercial, or the average of all the commercials in the pod?" he asked.

Ad Execs: Make TV Commercial Ratings The Market Currency

                          Having          Making 
                        Commercial      Commercial 

Ratings      Ratings The TV 
                        Available     Market Currency 
Very Interested            75%              58% 
Somewhat Interested        21%              27%

Ambivalent                  3%              10% 
Somewhat Disinterested      0%               2% 
Very Disinterested          0%               3% 

Source: Association of National Advertisers' member survey.