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Just a few short weeks after Nielsen CEO David Kenny told Adweek the company was “making real progress” on earning back its accreditation status, the Media Rating Council lifted its suspension imposed in 2021.
Top line
The MRC first stripped Nielsen’s accreditation of its national ratings in late 2021 after the measurement giant admitted to lowballing audiences nationally and locally early in the pandemic, potentially costing clients millions of dollars.
Now, Nielsen has put in the work to regain its status and industry trust, making it the only nationally accredited measurement company ahead of the 2023 upfronts.
Between the lines
The reinstatement does not include the digital TV ratings component of Nielsen’s Television Audience Measurement service, nor Nielsen’s Local Market Television Service, which remain in a suspended status and under review.
Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings service is also not accredited, nor are several new features or the new Nielsen One service.
“Nielsen has undertaken strong efforts to correct the issues that led to its loss of MRC accreditation 19 months ago and to restore key aspects of its panel performance,” George Ivie, executive director and CEO of the MRC, said in a statement.
“The MRC’s audit has shown these efforts have been successful, and as a result our TV committee and board agreed that accreditation should be reinstated. That said, there is still more work to be done both in the near and long term to ensure Nielsen’s National TAM measurements continue to meet our standards and the requirements of the industry,” he added.
The statement specifically pointed to the future incorporation of return path and ACR data, requiring “compliance and transparency” to maintain accreditation, as well as the “continuance of Nielsen’s commitments to validate and improve its estimates of the level of broadband-only households in the TAM service and enhancing the disclosures it provides to users about the variability associated with its estimates of television viewing.”
“These latter two commitments were especially critical to our decision to reapply accreditation at this time,” added Ivie.
Bottom line
The news comes after the MRC voted to maintain Nielsen’s suspension in November, and just ahead of the 2023 upfronts season, where measurement is a top-of-mind concern for publishers and buyers alike.
Transparency has been a priority for Nielsen coming into the upfront, as well as reestablishing trust within the marketplace.
“I just think [it] is going to be the way that market stays healthy, the way Nielsen stays healthy. That trust in Nielsen, and then using that trust to build trust in the [media] ecosystem,” Kenny recently told Adweek.
