CNBC Drops Nielsen Ratings

Financial news network CNBC will no longer rely on TV ratings specialist Nielsen to measure its daytime audience, beginning later this year. Instead, it has retained marketing and research firm Cogent Reports for the task, according to The Wall Street Journal.

For years CNBC and its parent company, Comcast Corp. ’s NBCUniversal, have complained that Nielsen underreports the size and wealth of its audience by failing to track “out of home” viewing in places such as offices and airports.

CNBC’s switch to Cogent is the latest barb for Nielsen, which has faced criticism from media companies that it has been slow to adapt its traditional ratings to changing media consumption habits. While many media companies say they are frustrated with Nielsen, CNBC is the first network to opt out of its ratings.

CNBC’s daytime Nielsen ratings, which always have been relatively small, have fallen sharply over the past decade. In 2014—its least-watched year since 1995—CNBC had an average audience of 177,000 people from the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., according to Nielsen. That is down 17% from an average of 214,000 viewers in 2004, and it is a drop of 13% from 2013.