Nielsen Licenses AT&T Sub Data: Will Incorporate Into National, Local TV Ratings

by Joe Mandese , January 18, 2017

Nielsen and AT&T this morning announced a deal to license “anonymized” set-top-box data from subscribers of AT&T’s DIrecTV and U-Verse services to Nielsen to be used in its local and national TV ratings services.

Nielsen did not provide technical details about how it would be done, but it said that during 2017 it will combine its ratings panel data with AT&T’s set-top subscriber data, which will be used for “reporting on an aggregated basis.

“AT&T's data will enrich Nielsen's local and national TV measurement services, providing enriched, electronic measurement in all 210 local TV markets,” Nielsen said in a statement, adding that the data would also be “incorporated with data from other data providers to complement Nielsen's national and local suite of products, such as Nielsen Scarborough, NLTV and Nielsen N-Score.”

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4 comments about "Nielsen Licenses AT&T Sub Data: Will Incorporate Into National, Local TV Ratings".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, January 18, 2017 at 1:20 p.m.
This makes me wonder whether this will allow AT&T to deal with one of the major problems it faces in selling its "addressable TV" GRP inventory---namely the lack of viewer data so advertisers can target "addressable consumers" not just TV sets. By having viewer- per- set---or home--data from a selected subsample of its coverage base, AT&T could estimate far more precisely how to target viewers, using Nielsen's data. As for Nielsen combining its rating panels with AT&T's "set top subscriber data" , this sounds like a very iffy proposition. For example, what if the AT&T subscribers do not represent a true crossection of the total population--very likely----does this force Nielsen to use more of its ascription/simulation wizardry to "marry" the two sets of data?
Reply

John Grono from GAP Research, January 18, 2017 at 11:46 p.m.

Ed that is basically the way MCN (the sales arm of our cable company Foxtel) works their MultiView system.

Jon Currie from Currie Communications, Inc. replied, January 19, 2017 at 6:20 p.m.

Ed, as you know Nilesen aready does it's ascription wizardry with "meter/diary" markets and will theoretically do it with code reader data. To me, the question is why was this necessary if they are supposed to be implementing code readers in diary markets?

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, January 19, 2017 at 6:32 p.m.

Jon, that's a good question. I am amazed at how "panel members" seem to be acquired and/or integrated , one set melded into the other, as these hybrid samples get cobbled together. Perhaps, Nielsen is able to explain how these practices yield a truly projectable sample to it's clients---assuming that the clients really care about such details. Or is having "data" so important that the need for numbers transcends everything. I really hope that my concerns are unfounded however, as over many years, including two separate stints as a Nielsen client, I have always found this company to be forthright and geared to doing the right thing.