- The Media Rating Council has granted accreditation to Nielsen’s approach to integrating first-party livestreaming data into its national television panel rating services, based on a release from Nielsen. The approval makes Nielsen the first accredited livestreaming rating service with “persons-level granularity,” based on the release.
- Though previously unaccredited, Nielsen has been using first-party data provided by Amazon Prime to measure the streamer’s NFL “Thursday Night Football” coverage. With the official accreditation, other ad-supported streamers may follow suit.
- The approval is a giant shot in the arm for Nielsen, which at one point had lost crucial accreditations. Though the company has won those accreditations back, the competition for rating currency providers has increased.
After many years of being the only game in town, Nielsen must fight for its place in the latest media landscape, and the company hopes this latest development will help put it back on top. Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao was quick to indicate what the MRC’s approval means as a broader testament to the business.
“With time-tested methodologies like our accredited individuals panel and precise latest solutions for the streaming era, we consider Nielsen is true where the industry needs us to be — at the convergence of all the ways people watch content,” Rao said in the release about the MRC approval.
However, the promoting measurement space has been evolving, meaning Nielsen faces more competition than it has in the past. Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot have all developed their very own rating currency platforms, and a brand new industry group, the Joint Industry Committee (founded by TV programmers, media agencies, streaming platforms and other players), has emerged to enable latest measurement solutions.
As a result, many advertisers are counting on multiple rating currency platforms to make sure they’re getting the most complete picture they’ll. Nearly half of all advertisers are very conversant in the move to alternative currencies and 60% have used such currencies in the past 12 months, based on Advertiser Perceptions’ recent TV Measurement Report. Two-thirds of advertisers consider the future will include a multi-currency landscape, though they would really like to see the set of currencies limited to not more than five.
Still, Nielsen stays the leading TV currency, and 80% of advertisers approve of the company’s use of a platform’s first-party data in its live programming rankings, which implies others are more likely to follow suit. Indeed, VideoAmp, iSpot and Comscore have all incorporated first-party streaming data from networks into their measurement, but will not be yet accredited, based on AdAge.
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