MRC Withholds Accreditation for December PPM Ratings

The Media Rating Council (MRC) is withholding its accreditation of Nielsen's December 2016 Portable People Meter (PPM) audio measurement reports in 26 US markets, because of a meter connectivity issue.

The PPM audio measurement tool was developed by ratings giant Arbitron, acquired by Nielsen in 2012 and now known as Nielsen Audio. The service received MRC accreditation in the majority of markets in 2013, but the Council said in a statement that accreditation will now be withheld until Nielsen Audio has fully addressed its inquiries, and 'completed additional analyses requested by MRC that demonstrate to MRC's satisfaction that the PPM service disruption that affected, at minimum, the first week of the December reporting period, has been addressed and appropriately disclosed in a manner that is fully consistent with the MRC Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research'.

Nielsen disagrees with the decision to withhold accreditation, and following analysis of data quality, says it stands behind the December PPM monthly estimates. In a communication sent to clients, the firm explained that the problem affecting its PPMs was caused by 'faulty reboot logic' in a subset of meters that were unable to connect to the collection server. The firm is now testing a software update, and plans to correct the issue by the end of Q1 2017. 'Nielsen is confident in our findings of the root cause and that all meters in our currency panels are operating within our quality norms. We will continue to monitor all in-market meters on a daily basis', the firm added.

Yesterday, Nielsen announced that it will be increasing the sample size of its radio panel by 10 percent, in 48 Portable People Meter (PPM) markets across the US.

Web sites: www.mediaratingcouncil.org and www.nielsen.com .