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Nielsen’s commercial ratings are no longer in the evaluation phase and have officially become the currency of the TV advertising marketplace this week, but according to a letter circulated by Star Media Enterprises - a reprocessor of TV ratings for Nielsen clients - the new ratings are not ready for prime time.
The letter lists several problems with the new commercial ratings and points out “the latest error, found this week, is duplicate reprocessing records,” writes MediaPost. “For the last three weeks certain program telecasts have been reported with duplicate telecast information.” The errors involve a number of cable networks including Lifetime, Fox News Channel, ESPN Classic, Noggin/The N and Versus.
Nielsen is said to be investigating the matter.
The letter pinpointed other problems such as demonstration data being reported incorrectly, programs omitted from Nielsen’s average commercial minute MIT tapes, inconsistencies in the data for certain programs spanning several weeks, and certain record types being omitted, among others.
Nielsen said that, while the letter itself was a surprise, the details of the letter were not, and company officials claimed that most of the problems pinpointed in the letter took place back in May when the ratings were first released. A spokesperson called the problems minor formatting errors.
At least one Nielsen client disagrees with that assessment, saying that the issues are more than formatting errors and that commercial minutes ratings are not ready to be used as currency. Other executives say the problems are widespread and are not relegated simply to the new commercial minutes ratings but are indications of overall processing issues.
Nielsen’s commercial minutes ratings, in combination with live-plus-three-day program ratings, were the currency used by most parties in the recent upfront marketplace.
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