The problem: Ratings may have been "misattributed," Nielsen said. That means people may have been watching a show on one network, but the credit went to another.
The cause was a software glitch, and Nielsen said it began in March.
Nielsen has a lock on measuring who's watching what, and its ratings determine billions of dollars in ad sales -- and who gets to keep their jobs.
"This is the equivalent of an earthquake. When you can't trust the ground you're standing on, it's disorienting," a network insider said. "What else has gone wrong that we don't know about?"
The error did not affect ratings on cable or local TV ratings.
And Nielsen said the impact shouldn't be too big: Most programming would see a difference of 0.05 of a ratings point.
However, even tenths of a ratings point mean a lot in terms of advertising rates.
Nielsen said it caught the issue because of the uptick in audience that came with the fall TV season.
Nielsen has long struggled with how to count viewing that takes place off the television, even as video on mobile devices has proliferated. These difficulties have clogged how much content is available on devices, since networks are reluctant to make their content available live on Internet-connected devices without any promise that viewing on iPads or iPhones will count toward the all-important rankings that set advertising rates.
This year, Nielsen began measuring and collecting data about viewing on other devices.
According to Broadcasting&Cable, David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS, said it was clear that ABC benefited from the error.
“That’s pretty clear to anyone who’s been looking at the ratings,” he said. How big is the issue? “It’s certainly significant for ABC,” he said. “It’s of lesser significance to the rest of us.”
Poltrack said that when the new numbers come out, in cases where ABC shows added three or four tenths of a percentage point, three of three of those will likely go away.
Gains for the other networks will be smaller. “It’s still nice to have one of these controversies where you benefit.”
As for news programs, TV Newser reports, the outcome of the evening news battle between “NBC Nightly News” and ABC’s “World News Tonight” could be affected.
NBC fell behind ABC during one week in the summer of 2013 in the demo. Then in April — not long after the Nielsen errors began — the long-dominant NBC program began falling behind ABC. Since the week of June 30, “World News” has been a consistent, though narrow, No. 1 in the demo. Then last week, the ABC broadcast broke “Nightly’s” five-year winning streak among total viewers.
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