Nielsen Puts Itself In MRC Time-Out

Nielsen Holdings PLC has asked the Media Rating Council, the media industry’s measurement watchdog, to pause accreditation for its national TV rating service, a move that would leave the measurement giant’s core product without the organization’s seal of approval for the first time since the 1960s.

The Wall Street Journal reports the company chalked up the request to concerns regarding its panel, the group of people the company uses to assess ratings in the U.S., as well as efforts to modernize its national TV measurement product.

“We believe hiatus is the best course of action at this time and will allow us to focus on innovating our core products, continuing to deliver data that the industry can rely on and ultimately creating a better media future for the entire industry,” Nielsen said in a statement.

A suspension of its accreditation could further erode the confidence of Nielsen’s TV network customers and advertisers after concerns were raised about challenges maintaining its panel system during the pandemic and other issues that led to an undercounting of viewers. But short-term effects likely won’t hit the company’s bottom line, said Douglas M. Arthur, an analyst at Huber Research Partners LLC, in an email.

Nielsen’s customer contracts don’t require the company to have accreditation, and there is still not much competition for prime-time TV ratings data, he said.  However, losing such a stamp of approval could give customers more leverage when a new contract comes up, he said.

The Video Advertising Bureau, which represents many large TV networks, in July called for the MRC to suspend Nielsen’s accreditation partly because of the panel’s problems during the pandemic.

Companies have long criticized Nielsen’s ratings system, which is the underpinning of nearly all transactions in the $70 billion traditional TV advertising business in the U.S. But the criticisms boiled anew after the MRC this spring said that Nielsen had under counted TV viewers by up to 6% during the month of February 2021.