Nielsen took another hit in credibility when it announced late last week that an unspecified technical error has led to incorrect ratings for broadcast networks going back at least to mid-August.
This merely aggravates the mistrust that many people in the industry have for Nielsen and its ratings, mistrust that goes all the way back to long-standing suspicion about the diary system Nielsen built its business on, but now extends to Nielsen’s apparent scrambling to take into account new technology (DVRs) and new viewing habits (over the top viewing, binge viewing).
The company is being challenged by Rentrak, a company that built a fairly solid reputation measuring on-demand viewing, and which solidified its television monitoring business last week with the purchase of Kantar’s U.S. operations.
Nielsen said its software glitch did not affect its cable and local television ratings.
On the other hand, Nielsen has been slow to adapt to multi-screen viewing, which includes a growing number of people watching shows days after their network debuts. The entire industry long ago shifted from accepting overnight ratings to L+3, a window that stretches to three days after debut. Now the argument is whether or not to go to L+7, as Comcast does with the Xfinity On Demand Top 20 ratings it has been providing weekly since earlier this year.
TiVo has long provided its own viewing data, and shares that with a number of partners. Cable companies have also been dissatisfied with Nielsen’s technical capabilities for reporting, specifically its delay in figuring out a way to accurately measure multi-screen viewing.
Various companies provide similar statistics for viewing on mobile devices.
Comcast said it tallies more than 400 million views each month through Xfinity On Demand alone.
What nobody is doing is compiling accurate statistics from all sources.
It is a straightforward process to poll DVRs, and it is a simple matter to measure usage of IP-based video, whether on PCs, tablets or smartphones (processes only somewhat complicated by honoring privacy concerns).
The technology is there to measure audiences accurately.
One of the issues is that providing that data is a lucrative business. The questions now are who is going to collect it, collate, and sell it.
Xfinity On Demand Top 20 TV Shows
- How to Get Away With Murder, ABC
- Gotham, FOX
- Scandal, ABC
- The Big Bang Theory, CBS
- Family Guy (premiere), FOX
- The Blacklist, NBC
- Scorpion, CBS
- Son of Anarchy, FX
- The Strain, FX
- Stalker (premiere), CBS
- Gracepoint (premiere), FOX
- Black-ish, ABC
- Modern Family, ABC
- Castle (premiere), ABC
- The Good Wife, CBS
- Madam Secretary, CBS
- Resurrection (premiere), ABC
- Grey’s Anatomy, ABC
- Bad Judge (premiere), NBC
- NCIS, CBS
Comcast notes that ranking is based on the total Xfinity On Demand views on the TV within seven days of a show’s original live airing. The list is inclusive of all in-season programming across broadcast, cable and premium networks. Views of most broadcast and cable programming within the first three days are included in Nielsen L+3 ratings, the company noted.
