• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 21, 2023

The Media Rating Council (MRC) late Thursday issued a statement clarifying the decision-making related to Nielsen's plans to integrate first-party data from Amazon into its ratings of the streaming platform's "Thursday Night Football" games for the 2023 season.

The statement doesn't break any new news, but is the MRC's official sum-up on what transpired, including:

• Nielsen initially informed the MRC of its plan to utilize Amazon's data in its MRC-accredited national panel-based measurement service for the "Thursday Night Football" games.

• The MRC informed Nielsen and Amazon that it needed to examine the processes they would be using to adjust the "Monday Night Football" ratings, and that the new "Thursday Night Football" measurement method would not be considered part of Nielsen's MRC-accredited national ratings service.

• Based on feedback from MRC, Nielsen chose to not integrate the new measurement into its MRC-accredited panel-based ratings service for now.

• Nielsen instead opted to produce a custom non-MRC-accredited report for the use of Amazon and others "solely for the purpose of non-transactional press information."

• The MRC reaffirmed that Nielsen's national panel-based service remains accredited by the MRC and that the new Amazon "Thursday Night Football" measurement method has "has not yet met MRC requirements for integration into Nielsen’s national service panel."

Separately, the MRC's audit committee is expected to vote soon on whether to continue accrediting Nielsen's national panel-based ratings service when it transitions to a hybrid Big Data-plus panel based service.