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TNS Asks for Head-to-Head Test against Nielsen

In a development that is beginning to look eerily familiar to the Arbitron-Media Audit/Ipsos debate, TNS Media Intelligence has claimed that its own service is a better, more qualified alternative to Nielsen’s commercial ratings. TNS MI’s senior vp-research Jon Swallen proposed that the industry conduct a side-by-side test of the two. The suggestion came during a forum yesterday on Nielsen’s plans to introduce commercial ratings later this year.

Some of Nielsen’s clients seemed to support the idea, but it was unclear whether Nielsen did, or whether they would, writes MediaPost. When asked directly, Nielsen representatives deflected the question, saying instead that they had already applied to the Media Rating Council for an audit and to get MRC accreditation to use it as part of a TV ratings service.

TNS MI has also applied for MRC accreditation for use as a TV ratings service. Swallen pointed out that the MRC may provide a forum for a head-to-head test between the two services. TNS MI’s data is currently used by 80 percent of media companies and 60-70 percent of ad agencies, according to the company.

The article notes that of the 70 executives who attended the Advertising Research Foundation committee meeting and the scores who listened in via telephone or webcasts, not a single representative from advertisers was present. Rather, the buyer’s voice was represented by Judy Vogel, who chairs the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ media research committee. She championed the concept of needing more granular data such as commercial ratings.

NBC’s cable networks said yesterday that they would opt out of using Nielsen’s commercial ratings. The cable networks so far seem to have the most objections to the way Nielsen plans to track commercial ratings.