Nielsen to Decide Soon on 'Live plus 3' Local Ratings

Nielsen Media Research has informed clients that it is close to making a decision on whether to make its local TV ratings more consistent with national TV ratings currency.

The firm is debating switching to 'live' plus three days of commercial minute ratings for local TV, which means that advertising would be sold on the basis of ratings for specific commercials, and that any ads watched within three days on digital video recorders would also be included in the data.

Nielsen currently reports 'live' only and 'live' plus seven days of playback audiences in its local TV ratings, but the latter is not favoured by some advertisers who depend on their ads being seen when they were originally broadcast.

Local stations in much of the US are still measured by written diaries, which means that neither second-by-second programme nor ad measurement is yet feasible. However, Nielsen said the move to the same time-shifted ratings standard would put the local and national TV advertising marketplaces on the 'same temporal playing field'.

Recently promoted SVP-MD Local Television Client Services Kevin Svenningsen (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7309.htm ) explained in a letter to local station and agency clients that research had shown that more than 90% of advertising business was conducted on what is referred to as 'C3', or live plus three day average commercial minute ratings. He added that the firm was debating the switch in response to client requests to adopt a measurement stream that was closer to a national standard.

Web site is www.nielsenmedia.com.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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