Nielsen Still Bullish On Code Reader Ratings

Nielsen’s top local-ratings executive expressed confidence Thursday in the company’s new code-reader measurement system – including the controversial component that derives demographic data from distant markets. The new system is now in the test stages and due to begin replacing paper diaries in 44 markets on Jan. 1.

The executive – Matt O’Grady, EVP and managing director of local media for Nielsen – specifically addressed the new system’s “viewer-assignment” methodology, under which demographic data is to be “modeled” from people-meter households in larger markets to generate probable demographic profiles for the households in the smaller markets where diaries long provided the makeup of the sample households.

So many questions – as well as objections voiced by local broadcasters – have arisen over the last few months during ongoing testing of the code readers and viewer-assignment test data that Nielsen earlier this month postponed its planned launch of the new system from Oct. 1 to the beginning of next year.

While O’Grady did not directly address the postponement in his remarks – which he made during a session on local TV measurement at the TVB Forward conference in New York – he acknowledged broadcasters’ concerns about the new methodology. The subject came up when the session’s moderator – George Ivie, CEO of the Media Rating Council – asked O’Grady if the new system would “help local TV stations in terms of stability and ratings performance.”

“I know it will,” O’Grady said. “The diary has reached its shelf life and sample sizes [for the new system of passive code readers] have increased over the past 14 months by 13,000 households.”

“I know there are plenty of questions about this remodel,” he said of the viewer-assignment scheme. “However, I also know that remodeling is the future for us to assign demos to big-data sets. I know we can get it right.”

“The data already shows more points in the markets,” O’Grady said. “In the code reader markets, HUTs are way up and there’s more PUTs because we can assign a demo to everybody in the house, so I do believe it will work. And we’ll be able to deliver the data every month where we hadn’t been doing that before. I think it’s going to give [local] advertisers a lot more confidence because there will be more stability.”

In the weeks and months leading up to the postponement of the code reader launch, broadcasters expressed skepticism that demographic profiles of households in the Nielsen samples in their markets could be accurately derived from other locations where lifestyles might be very different. Nielsen postponed the launch in order to have more time to better explain the new methodology and, more to the point, make converts out of the skeptics.

Nielsen is awaiting a decision – expected to come down some time in the next few weeks – on accreditation of the new system from the MRC. This wasn’t mentioned either during the TVB measurement session, even though the head of the council was presiding over the session as moderator.

While O’Grady’s comments about the new measurement system took center stage at the TVB ratings session, attendees also heard from three other panelists, including Bill Livek, vice chairman and CEO of Rentrak; Joan Fitzgerald, VP, TV sales and business development for comScore; and Malcolm Casselle, SVP and general manager of digital media for SeaChange International.

Read all of TVNewsCheck’s TVB Forward coverage here.