Nielsen Bins Live-Only TV Ratings

In the US, Nielsen is to eliminate live-only TV ratings, and has confirmed it will be introducing major changes to the way it calculates national ratings, including adding duplicate viewing to program telecasts.

Nielsen first sparked controversy last September when it announced plans to move to live-program-plus-same-day ratings in its Local People Meter (LPM) and Set Meter markets by December.

The decision was stalled after industry players complained that the move would be 'a significant step backwards' and counter to client demands for more accountability.

However, from tomorrow, Nielsen will only provide overnight access to data for three different data streams: live program-plus-same-day time-shifting of programming, live-plus-three-day time-shifting, and live-plus-seven-day shifting. Live-only data will still be available, but only on a delayed basis.

President of Global Client Services Dave Thomas said having analysed both sides of the argument, Nielsen had concluded that it is simply not able to handle another stream of data.

Additionally, he stressed that live-plus-same-day viewing 'is more reflective of the way people are consuming TV these days'.

Separately, from December 2010, Nielsen will be making changes to its national TV calculations, in a move which it says will enable a 'more complete' reflection of TV content viewing.

The firm's national Average Audience (AA) or 'rating' calculation will be changed to include duplicate viewing of program telecasts. Currently AA data are 'multi processed', resulting in the removal of any duplicate viewing of a given telecast from the AA calculation. If a person watches a telecast multiple times, they are currently only counted once.

The new audience estimate will include all duplicated viewing activity - whether a household or person views multiple airings offered by the program provider, or views the same content multiple times via DVR playback. This change, Nielsen says, will enable the inclusion of viewing that occurs on other platforms, such as online.

Additionally in December, the National TV and Persons Usage (HUT/PUT) calculation will be changed to reflect DVR playback at the time it is played back, to offer insight into when people are spending time watching TV.

At the moment, only DVR playback that can be credited to a live event within seven days is included in this estimate and is credited back to the time of the live event. The new HUT/PUT estimates will reflect all DVR playback, including that done beyond seven days, and credit it at the time of play.

Nielsen is creating specific evaluation reports to gauge the impact of the new calculation changes and anticipates delivering the first reports next week.

Web site: www.nielsen.com .