Nielsen CEO Vows to Accelerate Measurement Fixes After Losing Accreditation

After a bruising summer of controversy, measurement firm Nielsen is looking to reestablish trust with the media industry—and to do it, the company plans to pick up the pace on its new measurement offerings. In a letter sent today to advertisers, agencies, broadcasters and others in the media industry, the firm, which in August had its national and local TV panels lose their third-party accreditation, promised to accelerate the rollout of Nielsen One, the company’s forthcoming cross-platform measurement tool that aims to solve some of the industry’s most nagging measurement problems—but is not projected to be fully implemented until 2024. In his letter, which was reviewed by Adweek, CEO David Kenny wrote Nielsen needs "to move faster in advancing our measurement because the audience itself is moving faster.” Kenny also issued a mea culpa of sorts, acknowledging the firm’s missteps that ultimately led to the third-party Media Rating Council’s decision to strip Nielsen TV services of their accreditation. “We haven’t been perfect. We were slow to explain how the health and safety-related measures we took led to a reduction of our panel size,” Kenny wrote. “We have increased the frequency and openness of our communications and will share future developments in a more timely and transparent manner. We have and will continue to respond to the MRC and our clients on areas we can improve, as their audiences are changing at a rapid pace.” MRC Strips Accreditation from Nielsen’s National and Local TV Measurement Services Nielsen doesn’t yet have an updated product timetable; as of now, Nielsen One’s earliest iterations will not be available until the final months of 2022 and won’t be completely rolled out until 2024. But in an interview with Adweek, Kenny doubled down on the company’s commitment to getting Nielsen One products out the door as soon as they are ready. “We believe Nielsen One can’t come fast enough, and if anything, this past year has convinced me that we need to move it up,” Kenny said. “We’ve got thousands of engineers and field operators and tens of millions of dollars behind getting this out there, because it’s what advertisers have long wanted. We agree with them.” Kenny’s message to the industry follows months of pressure that can largely be traced back to Nielsen’s decision in March 2020 to halt in-home maintenance on its panel households, which provide detailed information about viewing habits. (Those maintenance visits often include ensuring monitoring equipment is operating properly and that households comprising the panel are occupied.) Broadcasters began to complain about Nielsen figures, and after months of denial, Nielsen eventually admitted to audience undercounts in May. The CEO, though, stands by Nielsen’s decision to keep maintenance workers out of panelist homes in the early months of the pandemic, even though it prompted those inaccuracies. “I do not in any way regret that we prioritized public safety and the safety of panelists,” Kenny told Adweek. “We did things that did cause maintenance issues over time, but I don’t think losing lives for this would have been worth it.” What Kenny does regret is not communicating enough with the industry about those decisions early on. “We could have been more aggressive in communicating what was going on as this extended,” he said. “We all kept thinking we were going to get to the other end of the pandemic sooner.” For a thriving media ecosystem that works for all parties, the primary measurement cannot come from self-interested parties who are measuring themselves.—David Kenny, CEO, Nielsen The public letter and message sent today is a step in that direction, offering additional communication and transparency as Nielsen works to regain the industry’s trust and maintain its position at the top of the measurement heap. For decades, the media industry has relied upon Nielsen metrics and audience figures as the currency upon which advertising rates are set and decisions are made, but amid the controversy surrounding Nielsen, rival measurement companies have been jockeying for more market share. That’s also included some legacy broadcasters like NBCUniversal, which said last month that it would look to build an independent measurement system of its own. 'We need measurement to work for everyone' In the letter, Kenny laid out Nielsen’s own measurement philosophy, which includes collecting inclusive and representative data sets (hinging, of course, on the all-important panel that validates big data sets), building metrics that measure audiences across platforms and updating measurement standards to respond to the changing industry. It also includes a repudiation of broadcasters building out their own tools and a reassertion of the importance of independent third parties. How Nielsen Ratings Work “For a thriving media ecosystem that works for all parties, the primary measurement cannot come from self-interested parties who are measuring themselves,” Kenny wrote. There’s another philosophy that Kenny underscored to Adweek: ensuring that measurement systems and industry bodies are "not hijacked by legacy players wanting to remain in the safety of legacy process and legacy measurement"—a shot across the bow to broadcasters, whose industry group the Video Advertising Bureau led the loudest crusade against Nielsen this year. “The criticisms are not coming at us from digital platforms,” Kenny said. “They're not coming at us from advertisers who really want to buy an integrated base. By and large, I think the issue is to make sure that measurement evolves in the way the consumer watches today and doesn’t stay rooted in legacy because legacy players don't want to change it yet. ... We need measurement to work for everyone."