Media Rating Council Likely to Strip Nielsen's Accreditation Next Week

The Media Rating Council, the third-party accreditation organization that checks Nielsen and other measurement firms’ methodology, is likely to reach a decision about the status of Nielsen’s national TV service early next week—and the industry is bracing for Nielsen’s longstanding National TV measurement service to lose its accreditation, opening another major fissure in its longstanding but increasingly threatened measurement backbone. The decision is slated to come down days after Nielsen took the unprecedented step of asking the MRC to pause the accreditation of its National TV measurement service. That request, announced Thursday morning, came just hours before the MRC’s Television Committee was set to discuss a months-long dispute about the accuracy of Nielsen’s audience figures, which has been roiling the TV industry. For Nielsen, the situation is looking dire. MRC’s Television Committee met as scheduled on Thursday, two sources told Adweek, and two votes were held during the meeting: one on Nielsen's accreditation, and another on Nielsen’s hiatus request. In both votes, the overwhelming majority voted to revoke Nielsen’s accreditation and to reject the hiatus request, those sources confirmed. Early next week, the MRC’s board of directors will officially consider those findings. While it’s possible for the board to overturn the committee votes, the board of directors meeting is largely procedural, and sources say it would be extremely unlikely—and unprecedented—for them to overturn the results of the committee’s findings. Nielsen Confirms Undercount of Pandemic TV Viewership Following Standoff With Networks The MRC did not immediately comment further about the TV Committee’s findings, but in a statement late Thursday, MRC executive director and CEO George Ivie signaled that the situation for Nielsen was troubling. “In accordance with a provision in MRC’s procedures, Nielsen has asked to step away from the MRC accreditation process and enter a temporary hiatus period,” Ivie said in the statement. “However, in addition to those reasons for seeking a hiatus that Nielsen cited in its public statement on this matter, we are compelled to note that the National Television Service has also had some deep-rooted, ongoing performance issues that have threatened its accreditation, many of which pre-dated the well-documented Covid pandemic-related impacts to its panels. “Because of the totality and the gravity of these issues,” he continued, “we believe the matter requires further consideration by the full MRC Board before a conclusion on the National Television Service’s accreditation status is reached.” Months of playing defense The turn of events, and the expected outcome for next week, will be an astonishing blow to the measurement firm, which has been on the defensive for months in the wake of the audience measurement controversy. For nearly a year, Nielsen had been facing pressure from the Video Advertising Bureau, a powerful industry group that represents most of the major television networks and broadcasters. In May, Nielsen finally admitted that it had undercounted TV audiences by as much as 6% due to Covid-19-related maintenance problems, which limited in-home visits, and said it was committed to rectifying them. Instead of assuaging industry concerns, though, the admission set off another firestorm, and the VAB last month called on the MRC to strip Nielsen of its accreditation entirely. As of Friday, Nielsen remains accredited and in good standing with the Media Rating Council. It continues to develop Nielsen One, a single cross-media measurement offering, and has been rolling out piecemeal changes as it looks to lay the groundwork. In a statement, Mainak Mazumdar, Nielsen's chief data and research officer, defended the hiatus request as necessary for updating that groundwork. “This decision to go on hiatus allows us to focus on accelerating true cross-platform measurement for our clients. Deduplicated, cross-platform measurement, in an era where viewers have a myriad of non-linear options at their disposal—and are taking advantage of those options—is something our clients have asked us for," Mazumdar said. "This hiatus allows everybody to step back and find the best way to evolve measurement in a manner that will benefit the entire industry as tech and audiences evolve. We all need the best estimates of true audience behaviors. So, really, we agree with VAB on one thing—the need for change! We also want that change to be inclusive, cross media measurement that benefits both media sellers as well as media buyers. When it comes down to it, we are fully committed to the audit oversight by the Media Ratings Council, and we look forward to an accreditation process driven by actual data science, not members voting in their self-interest." He also slammed the VAB and some of its members for their handling of the measurement discrepancies that occurred during the earliest days of the pandemic. “There has been a callous and arrogant view of panelist safety during Covid by some publishers," he said. "The VAB complaint argues that we should have been declared an essential service and entered panelists' homes before CDC and local governments thought this was safe. Instead of relitigating Covid-era processes, we want to engage in future panel operations that remain safe and respectful of panelist safety and public health." Looking for third-party alternatives The months of controversy have shaken the industry’s confidence in the panel, and has increasingly led broadcasters to seek out additional alternative data sources. In an interview with Adweek on Friday, VAB CEO and president Sean Cunningham, who has been counseling members to seek out third-party data sources for measurement, said this latest turn of events and the expected outcome would mark a turning point for the industry. “This cadence of events that will almost assuredly produce suspension of national accreditation of Nielsen’s rating services is an extremely important step in us as an industry prioritizing the betterment and evolution of our currency and measurement databases,” Cunningham said. “It levels the playing field considerably with other data sources, specifically census-based data sources, and it normalizes the practice of using multiple datasets to establish guardrails and truth sets.” Nielsen Puts Its Third-Party National TV Ratings Accreditation on Hiatus