TNS Commercializes Set-Top TV Ratings, Competes With Nielsen

Years after it has faced any real competition in the U.S TV ratings business, a new potential rival is emerging for Nielsen Media Research. TNS Media Research, a major provider of TV ratings outside the U.S., in June will begin providing a commercialized ratings service based on anonymous viewing data aggregated from Charter Communications' 55,000 subscribers in the Los Angeles area. The deal marks the first time a significant player has deployed a commercialized TV ratings service to compete with Nielsen since companies such as AGB, Arbitron and the R.D. Percy Co. abandoned attempts to launch various TV ratings systems in the 1980s.

TNS' move comes as Nielsen's parent VNU is being acquired by a group of private equity firms that ultimately are expected to break-up the company and sell off its assets, and TNS is a likely bidder to vie for Nielsen's U.S. operations. Other bidders include Frank Maggio, the Florida real estate tycoon who owns erinMedia, a fledgling TV ratings firm that has filed two suits against Nielsen: one for antitrust; and the other for false advertising claims.

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Interestingly, erinMedia employs a similar model to TNS': aggregating viewing data from digital set-top devices installed by cable, satellite and other operators. However, erinMedia claims in its antitrust suit that Nielsen's business practices have made it difficult for erinMedia to strike deals with cable operators.

TNS' deal with Charter, which was first announced April 10, is actually the second deal TNS has done with a cable operator. Late last year, TNS entered into an agreement with Time Warner's Oceanic cable system in Honolulu, Hawaii, to begin aggregating anonymous viewing data from its subscribers and compile them into ratings. But the data from that deal is not being offered commercially for advertisers, agencies and others to buy and use in their planning and buying.

"It's still a market-by-market thing," George Shababb, COO of TNS Media Research, said of the company's rollout strategy in the U.S. Shababb said TNS is actively engaged in similar discussions with most if not all of the major cable and satellite operators, but that all of the deals may vary, including the level of detail of data derived from subscribers, as well as the commercial nature of the ratings that are distributed.

In effect, he says, TNS is acting as a third-party processor of the data, which will continue to be owned by the operators, who in turn will respect their privacy agreements with subscribers. However, in cases where consumers opt-in to TV ratings panels, Shababb said TNS plans to offer set-top level data within households, including usage across multiple TVs and set-top systems, and potentially demographic and psychographic data as well.

"The intent is to commercialize the data and take it to market," he says, drawing an analogy between TNS' plan and the way retail data companies like ACNielsen and Information Resources Inc. work with supermarket chains to compile and distribute their disparate retail scanner data into commercial databases.

Shababb acknowledges that the rollout play is only as representative as the systems it is deployed in, and among the digital households who receive those set-top devices. However, he says the plan is just one part of a more ambitious strategy to begin measuring other components of TV viewing, including the kind done on new digital platforms such as video-on-demand, and even over the Internet.

"I think there's real demand in the marketplace for competition," he assets, alluding to Nielsen's tacit monopoly of the U.S. TV ratings marketplace. TNS' strength, he says, is its long track record for TV research outside the U.S. where he estimated TNS is the second biggest player after Nielsen and AGB. The company is headquartered in London.

More importantly, he noted that TNS' ratings systems are much more focused on the kind of digital TV platforms that are likely to be the future of TV measurement, vs. the old style, people meter-based system currently operated by Nielsen in the U.S.

Nielsen's advantage, of course, is that it is the currency of the U.S. TV advertising marketplace. But even Nielsen has recognized the need for change, and is close to laying out details of an ambitious plan to expand the methods it uses for measuring how people view video on all the platforms they consume it on, including the Internet.

Among other advances TNS plans to introduce in the U.S. is a personal metering device dubbed the UltraTag, which can tell where viewers are when they're watching TV within a household. TNS has already tested the passive measurement system during a field trial in Chicago, and is preparing a second market trial in Columbus, Ohio.

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