Nielsen Drops TV and Radio Ad Tracking in Some Markets

Nielsen is to discontinue the monitoring of TV ad occurrences in 137 markets, from the end of this month, and to shutter its SIGMA radio ad monitoring service.

The TV areas losing coverage are among the smaller markets, in the category Nielsen calls RPD+, as they make use of Return Path Data from cable and satellite TV providers to measure viewers. Since paper diaries were discontinued in 2019, Nielsen has established partnerships with firms including Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, Roku and Vizio to access granular return-path and ACR data (automatic content recognition) from 75m devices - it also adds first-party data from participating streaming services. Comparing this data from particular households with the individual viewing behavior captured by its meters has allowed the firm to calibrate its new flagship big data + panel offering.

The company informed its clients of the shutdown decisions in a notice last week, stating 'As Nielsen continues to evolve its local TV measurement strategy to prioritize Big Data integrated with a representative panel, we are updating our operational workflows to reflect the primary measurement drivers in the marketplace.' Advertisers are now expected to rely on stations' own monitoring of ad occurrences, and Nielsen recommends that stations verify the presence of its watermarks in their on-air feeds on a regular basis, or purchase 'third-party encoding monitors'.

Nielsen, whose CEO Karthik Rao is pictured, is currently adjusting its methodology to take advantage of new universe estimates, supplied by the ARF's DASH service.

Web site: www.nielsen.com . Thanks to www.mediapost.com for much of the above.