The FreeWheel Council for Premium Video and the VAB have produced a checklist for buying premium video, part of an effort to persuade advertisers to stick to quality programming as the move ad dollars to multiple screens.

As part of the checklist, the FreeWheel Council and the VAB are proposing a new, clear definition for premium video, based on research conducted by Comcast Advertising. They define premium video as “content delivered transparently, in a trusted, brand-safe environment, seen by real people within a high-quality viewing experience.”

“We know that ads airing in premium video create positive experiences for viewers and fuel positive brand associations,” said Mark McKee, General Manager at FreeWheel. “But the industry lacks a clear definition of what ‘premium’ means. By partnering with the VAB and undertaking research to define premium video, we can advocate for transparency, quality and brand safety in video ad buying. This will help both buyers and sellers make more informed choices as the TV advertising industry continues to expand and evolve.”

The checklist suggests that buying premium video can help marketers ensure that their ads land in a quality environment that’s brand safe and provides transparency and legitimacy.

“The urgency for greater accountability and transparency in the video advertising industry has never been more important. Yet too often, marketers are forced to settle for opaque environments, handing their hard-earned investment to a black box,” said Danielle DeLauro, Executive VP at VAB. “We are proud to partner with the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video to illustrate the higher standard of trust and capability delivered by premium video platforms, encouraging marketers to maximize brand growth and apply this checklist to all their video partners.”

Nielsen dismissed the Video Advertising Bureau’s complaints about plans to use first-party data from Amazon to measure viewing of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video.

“We recognize this is a period of exceptional change in which all parties are at different stages of their own evolution,” Nielsen CEO of audience measurement business Karthik Rao said in a letter to VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham. “However, the search for perfection risks further delaying the measurement innovations that will ultimately help drive the industry into the future. We believe that our principled, transparent and open approach to integrating first-party data requires all publishers to play by the same rules and will accelerate the industry’s move toward a streaming-first world.”

Cunningham and members of the VAB complained that using Amazon data would “tip the scale” in favor of TNF and leave other NFL broadcasts with fewer viewers counted. They asked Nielsen to hold off on using the Amazon data to measure Thursday Night Football for advertisers.

Amazon’s first-party data gave TNF a larger audience than Nielsen’s figures.

Rao said that Nielsen has been engaged with the industry — including VAB members — about integrating first-party data when it measures live streaming. He also dismissed specific complaints about Nielsen’s measurement of TNF as “misleading and inaccurate.”

The letter included details explanations of why the variances the VAB was finding in Nielsen data were either smaller than the VAB found or not caused by the use of Amazon data.

Nielsen has had a series of meetings about measuring sports live streams since 2021, Rao said. In March, Nielsen shared a document outlining requirements for integrating first-party streaming data.

“Clients other than Amazon did not immediately decide to take action, but we remain hopeful that they will in light of our progress and the level of engagement from other NFL programming/advertising competitors,” Rao said. 

“While Amazon is the first integration partner, we have been in active discussions with many of our clients for years about incorporating their first-party data for more accurate measurement of audiences across all live program types,“ he said. “We look forward to bringing more such integrations into our measurement in the near future.”

As the TV industry tries to set new standards for cross-platform measurement, YouTube, the streaming leader, wants in and the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), representing programmers, is pushing back.

At issue could be whether programmers can afford all those scripted dramas and comedies if they have to compete in a market flooded with viewers of user-generated content.

Also Read: Premium Predicament: What’s Being Measured Is As Important Than Who Measures It

The rumble comes after programmers and media-agency executives, working as part of a programmer-funded Joint Industry Committee on Monday put forward a list of standards they want measurement companies to meet in order to get certified. 

The programmers originally wanted to standard to apply to the measurement of “premium video.” They don't want The Bear lumped in with Mr. Beast. Premium video proved difficult to define, so the standards apply to “long-form video.”

YouTube was having none of that. On Wednesday, YouTube published a blog post by Kate Alessi, managing director, YouTube/Video Global Solutions, which essentially argued that in cross-platform measurement, an impression is an impression.

“As an industry, we’ve arrived at a crossroads,“ she said. ”We have the opportunity to come together to solve cross-media measurement for marketers, agencies and consumers or we can head down a path of creating new measurement silos, inconsistent standards and unnecessary complexity.” 

Alessi proposed five principles. The first states that “measurement must provide a unified view of audiences across TV, CTV and online platforms” and the second calls on the industry to use the Media Rating Council’s viewable impression as the basis for counting impressions, reach and frequency and report other metrics, such as duration, separately. 

Also: NBCU Trying To Quantify Quality Amid Debate on Measurement

The MRC’s definition of a viewable impression is 100% of pixels shown for 2 seconds.

Some agencies, including GroupM, hold out for a higher standard.

YouTube said it would enable the MRC version of viewable impressions in its third-party measurement integrations.

Alessi said in the future of measurement there should be no new silos. “Audience is king, so measure it on a fair and comparable basis,“ she said. “Don’t silo video inventory based on arbitrary concepts like production value or curation. And yes, we believe our product will speak for themselves if we’re counted accurately and compared fairly in this environment.”

In a statement, VAB CEO Sean Cunningham skewered the idea that marketers win when “comparative impressions calculations default to the lowest common denominator.”

“It’s fair to say that the only entities that ‘win’ by that approach of hollowing out all factors of impression source, quality and impact are the entities with the largest supply of comparatively hollow, low/no investment impressions,” he said. “There is no other reason for a ‘principle’ that calls for a race to the bottom (lowest common denominator impressions) on a global scale.”

Cunningham notes that the TV business spends over $110 billion on content designed to engage consumers for advertisers. He adds that there are myriad studies showing that ads in professionally produced, long-form, multiscreen TV content yield superior impact with consumers.

He jabs YouTube by noting that the platform has spent $226 million on TV advertising for itself over the past five years. 

“While there may be ‘wins; somewhere in a principle defaulting to impression homogeneity and lowest common denominator — they are not marketer wins,” Cunningham concluded.

YouTube pointed to quotes from marketing industry leaders supporting its point of view.

“Marketers of all sizes insist on a measurement system that is objective, independent, transparent, neutral, and third-party verified and accredited by MRC,” said Bill Tucker, group executive VP at the Association of National Advertisers. “ANA’s CMM is based on these north star principles, and we support YouTube’s approach to aligning and advocating for these principles.”

Said Luis Di Como, global head of media at Unilever: “Unilever has long been committed to driving the adoption of a robust and transparent cross-media measurement system across the industry to offer brands more transparency in terms of their investment and better online experience for consumers. It’s encouraging to see YouTube aligns its principles for measurement by adopting industry standards and collaborating with the wider ecosystem." 

“Quality content is determined by the consumer and no one else,“ Bharad Ramesh, executive director, research and investment analytics, GroupM, said. “With viewers consuming content across many platforms, channels and screens, all that our clients and media partners can do is determine a fair value for quality — and it starts with measurement. It’s important that, as an industry, we collaborate to make an accurate and sustainable environment with standardized measurement capabilities to help make advertising work better for our clients and consumers.” 

“Advertisers have expressed their ‘North Star’ needs from cross-media measurement,“ World Federation of Advertisers CEO Stephan Loerke said. “The WFA is working with the ANA and ISBA to translate this into real-world technology solutions available globally. Whether this approach or another is adopted by a market, naturally it makes sense to align around advertiser needs. Innovation in measurement is key, but not at the expense of being useful and accurate.” ■

Nielsen, which has been touting that Nielsen One, its new cross-platform measurement system, is on track, quietly informed clients last week that the “big data” on which the platform relies isn’t ready to be used to make transactions.

Nielsen had planned to include its big data — information on viewing from set-top boxes and smart TVs — in its national TV ratings in September and have clients use it as currency in the scatter advertising market.

“Nielsen has been working with the industry to share the details of our methodology and the associated impact to audience estimates,” Nielsen said in its note to clients last Wednesday.  “One consistent piece of feedback from both clients and the MRC has been the need to explore additional methods to further reduce variability and improve overall stability. Similarly, we anticipate the need for additional enhancements to further address the limitations of big data. We have continued to iterate on potential enhancements to address these needs and are actively researching additional techniques in this area.

“Given the potential trend break that enhancements may cause, and in consideration of feedback that clients largely will not be transacting on this data in September, the upcoming launch of big data will no longer be for transaction purposes. This will allow more time to test, validate and share the impact of any additional changes, as well as consider MRC audit results, prior to the full transition in September 2023,” Nielsen said.

Asked about the delay and whether it would have an impact on Nielsen One, Nielsen responded with a statement.

"As planned, Nielsen will be launching the inclusion of Big Data sources into National TV reporting as of the September 2022 measurement,“ the statement said. “As we work to ensure the best quality and stability of the data during this transition, we have made the decision to delay using this data for transaction purposes. This decision does not impact our plans for full transition to panel, plus big data, in September 2023, or our path to accreditation for our National TV measurement service.”

With more viewers cutting the cord and streaming, Nielsen’s traditional panel methodology is having trouble keeping up with fragmenting consumer behavior. The panels also broke down during the pandemic, resulting in Nielsen undercounting viewers and its national rating service losing its accreditation from the Media Rating Council, the industry’s watchdog. 

A meeting to review an audit of Nielsen's big data methodology, scheduled for August 25, was postponed. 

“Because Nielsen is working on enhancements to its big data initiative, we postponed certain of the audit processes and a previously scheduled review meeting on this initiative in order to extend our audit to cover these enhancements,” MRC senior VP, associate director David Gunzerath said. “The committee hasn’t seen any audit results yet and has not met, and the MRC staff believes these enhancements are important to be included in our consideration.”

The MRC is also working with the MRC to get its national and local TV ratings systems reaccredited. The audit of Nielsen's big-data methodology is designed to verify its compliance with the MRC's standards so that if the national service gains back accreditation, the combined methodology would maintain accreditation.

With complaints about Nielsen rising, TV networks are aggressively working with measurement companies offering alternatives to Nielsen, which itself is trying to complete a $16 billion buyout to a group of private equity investors that believes Nielsen’s sagging stock price was too low.

When Nielsen first released big data numbers on an informational basis to clients earlier this year, TV networks represented by the VAB spotted discrepancies and urged Nielsen not to release further data until the problems could be solved and more information about Nielsen’s methodology could be disclosed.

“This is a big deal,” VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said of Nielsen delaying the use of its big data for transactions. “It’s an indication of a state of complete unreadiness.”

Since March, when VAB went public with its problems with Nielsen’s big data numbers, Nielsen has continued to issue ratings including big data on a monthly basis for the industry to review and the quality of those ratings has not improved, Cunningham said.

“It never got one iota better,“ he said. “What we saw was a compounding of the same types of illogical errors. At the same time, Nielsen has not been forthcoming about its methodology or what steps it was taking to halt the errors. Their current C3 and C7 national ratings panel is also a black box of dysfunctional mystery.”

Cunningham added that if the big data isn’t ready for prime time, it’s also unlikely that Nielsen One can be rolled out this year, which continues to be Nielsen’s plan.

“We were told everything was going to be on time, the data was going to be just fine, it was going to be considered for trading as currency data and it would be audited and it would be accredited,“ Cunningham said. “They went 0 for 4 on all of that." The new delay, which appears to acknowledge problems with big data, could be seen as good news for the advertising and marketing community, which still uses Nielsen as its main viewership measurement standard.

“Anyone who's in the business of building a brand or building positive sales momentum as a marketer is not going to be served by exponentially defective currency,“ he added. “So, yeah, it's the fact that they've had to acknowledge this need to go fix this is definitely good news for a marketer, in that they're not going to be subject to substandard measurement and currency.” 

That news also comes as the FCC could be reconsidering its exclusive reliance on Nielsen data to define TV station markets for determining must-carry/retransmission consent carriage elections and other purposes.

The FCC voted unanimously last month to tentatively adopt Nielsen's Local TV Report as the successor to the company's phased out TV Station Index. But one commissioner, Republican Nathan Simington, used that vote to suggest the FCC's reliance on Nielsen data may be an overreliance on a single source that needed examining and perhaps rethinking. He cited the MRC accreditation issues as one of the reasons why. Contributing: John Eggerton. ■

New measurement providers got a workout in the upfront, eighty-five percent of the networks surveyed by the VAB said they increased their use or investment in alternate audience data providers.

Most deals continued to be done using Nielsen, but the networks and advertisers were aggressive in talking about trying out alternate services because of complaints about Nielsen undercounting viewers and losing its accreditation from the Media Rating Council.  

In their reports on upfront activity, the networks talked about making more deals based on metrics other than the traditional age-sex demographics.

In the VAB survey, the networks said that 175 advertisers were engaged with TV publishers in either using or testing new measurement options. The top advertiser categories interested in new metrics included automotive, consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, quick service restaurants and pharmaceuticals.

The new measurement options were applied to linear TV, streaming, connected TV and over-the top.

“While many pre-Upfront indicators pointed to a potential win for marketers that were ready to dive into TV measurement options providing new highs in counting all ad screens and better calculating cross-platform dynamics, we also heard marketers ask for a post-Upfront usage tally of measurement optionality,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “Those tallied results reveal an ad marketplace embracing newer measurement options with escalating urgency, and the increased competition in all-screens/ cross-platform TV measurement is shaping up to be a bigger realized win for marketers searching for business and brand growth—sooner rather than later.” ■

VAB, the group representing TV networks and distributors that has been critical of Nielsen, named Benjamin Vandegrift as VP of measurement solutions, a new position.

Vandegrift, who was director of product marketing at TVSquared, will lead the VAB’s modern measurement initiatives and collaborate with VAB’s Measurement Innovation Task Force. He reports to Danielle DeLauro, executive VP at VAB.

“As the industry ushers in a new era of modern measurement, we are thrilled to have Ben join the VAB, and our Measurement Innovation Task Force,” DeLauro said. “His deep, multi-faceted experience plus proven ability to educate, enlighten and empower media professionals across all sectors of the industry is certain to fast-track TV’s path towards a better measurement future.”

Also: Networks Ask Nielsen to Halt Release of 'Big Data' Numbers Until After Upfronts

Before TVSquared, Vandegrift spent seven years at Effectv, where he graduated from research analyst to manager of data innovation and deployment. VAB said he is also a classically trained pianist and a fan of the TV show Mad Men.

“At VAB, my mission is to propel modern measurement solutions to the forefront of the industry. A cornerstone of that mission is educating industry players and empowering them to stay ahead in the ever-growing world of video measurement. We will be putting the spotlight on what matters most and simplifying the complex—so that, ultimately, better-informed decisions utilizing modern video measurement technology can be made,” Vandegrift said. “I am honored to take on the role of VP of Measurement Solutions, and look forward to contributing to our new world of TV measurement and currency.” ■

The networks and other TV sales organizations represented by the Video Advertising Bureau are asking Nielsen to immediately halt the release of viewership data based on the ratings company’s new “Big Data” approach until after the upfronts.

In a letter VAB said was sent to Nielsen CEO David Kenny late Tuesday (March 8), VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said the first batch of new data was “rife with illogical audience patterns and contradictions that render it currently unusable.”

The problems are compounded because the upfront marketplace, where advertisers make commitments to buy about $20 billion worth of commercials, is about to get underway, VAB said. The VAB contends that having another set of numbers — especially problematic ones — will add an unacceptable layer of confusion to negotiations.

“Given the compounded Big Data deficiencies (mostly unusable data plus unacceptably low levels of explanations/disclosures/verification), complicated by the current timing (Upfront planning season), Nielsen’s release of a second data set (Big Data atop National Panel) that is intended as eventual currency data has to be halted immediately by Nielsen in order to fix this broken-on-arrival data set,” Cunningham's letter said.

In a statement, Nielsen said: "We are deeply disappointed that these concerns would be raised in the press rather than in direct discussion and collaboration with us. We have been in regular contact with our clients, including hosting client webinars and numerous individual client meetings to review the methodology used to create the audience estimates and the recent release of impact data. We have been, and remain committed to working with our clients to convey a deep understanding of this comprehensive offering."

"Up until this letter was issued, we have not received questions from the VAB. Additionally, a trade group associated with traditional TV channels is an incomplete and biased subset of the video marketplace. We prefer to work openly with the entire industry to get to the best measurement solution," Nielsen added.

"Furthermore, based on feedback across buyers and sellers we made the decision to allow either data set to be used for trading in the fall. We have addressed client concerns around the proximity of impact data to upfronts and our approach will enable buyers and sellers to trade against big data plus panel metrics if they so choose, while giving our clients runway to adapt to this launch," the Nielsen statement said.

With viewership shifting from traditional broadcast and cable to streaming, Nielsen is moving toward supplementing its panel of viewing households with big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs to get a better handle on more fragmented audiences.

Nielsen’s current system was found to undercount viewers during the pandemic and lost its accreditation from the Media Rating Council, the industry’s research watchdog. VAB, representing the networks, has been a vocal critic of Nielsen and many media companies are looking at alternative measurement companies to provide currencies to test leading up to the upfront and Nielsen is rolling out its own new measurement system, Nielsen One, starting with advertising measurement.

Nielsen released the first batch of ratings using “big data” covering viewing from September 2021 on February 23. The timing is bad because networks and agency media buyers are starting their upfront planning and don’t have adequate time to adequately compare the ratings from the old and new systems. Nielsen had previously assured the market it would have a year to examine the new data before the start of the 2022-23 television season.

In addition to asking Nielsen to halt the release of the new big data ratings, VAB wants full disclosure on how the new ratings were created and guidance on how to compare the two sets of viewing information. 

While examining Nielsen’s data, the VAB said it found “illogical demographic audience shifts” within the dayparts. It found that the big data version showed audience gains on persons 2-plus and persons 18 to 49, but significant declines among people 25 to 54.

Similarly, VAB found double-digit swings in male and female viewership in many dayparts, genres and programs.

In sports programming, there were instances where ratings are down, according to big data, while persons using TV stats for the same programs show double-digit increases.

VAB also said that while Nielsen had expected that using big data would be more accurate and show larger viewership for smaller networks, the ratings released by Nielsen gave 30% of the smallest 100 networks lower overall audiences, compared to just 15% of the 30 largest networks showing declines.

In conclusion, the VAB wants Nielsen to stop issuing big data releases until they are proven fixed to address the points raised in the letter. The group also wants Nielsen to clarify how long Nielsen's current C3 and C7 commercial ratings will be available and usable.

And it wants a review of how Nielsen is updating its panels, including doubling the size of broadband-only homes, and for Nielsen to clarify the role of the panels in its big data ratings.

“The VAB had high hopes for big data being a big leap forward in what Nielsen’s measurement and currency can bring to marketers, but after in-depth analysis, it’s clear to us that this first data set is rife with serious problems,” Cunningham said through a spokesperson. “Taking the time to right the wrongs now is in the TV buy/sell marketplace’s best interests and gives Nielsen time to fulfill their promise of coming to market with a more accurate solution. VAB’s Measurement Innovation Task Force is ready to work with Nielsen on the issues we’ve raised, to help put them on a better course to better measurement.” ■

The VAB on Wednesday (Jan. 26) issued a report saying that Nielsen’s error in not counting some out-of-home viewing was a much bigger deal than the ratings firm let on and resulted in billions of impressions not being registered and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of TV ads unsold.

Nielsen admitted to its out-of-home flub in December. It followed confirmation that Nielsen had been undercounting TV viewing during the pandemic. The missteps are fueling efforts by programmers to find alternative measurement providers.

Nielsen did not provide the magnitude of the out-of-home viewers it omitted due to what it said was a computer programming error.

The VAB, which uncovered Nielsen’s undercount during the pandemic, worked with its VAB Measurement Innovation Task Force to study the out-of-home data for eight of the 16 months Nielsen said its computers messed up the out-of-home count.

It found that there were almost 30 billion ad impressions uncounted from May to December of 2021 and that resulted in over $350 million in TV ads that could not be bought or sold between May and November of 2021.

“The only thing worse than Nielsen’s admitted error of 65 consecutive weeks of undercounting TV viewing was their claim of ‘no impact to minimal impact’ from that blunder,“ VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham said. “We now know that error is tracking towards 60 billion lost TV impressions and $700 million worth of TV ads that marketers couldn’t buy because of Nielsen’s second admitted case of 2020-2021 pervasive undercounting.”  

Nielsen maintained its original assessment of the situation.  "We reviewed the information shared by the VAB today, and while we acknowledge the understatement in a portion of our National out-of-home audiences, we stand by our prior statements that the magnitude of the issue was very small for the majority of telecasts," Nielsen said in a statement.

According to the VAB, nearly 400,000 people were not counted in primetime ratings every night from May to December 2021, the VAB said. 

The undercount was particularly pronounced with sports, young viewers and minority viewers. VAB said that more than 10.5 billion impressions among hard-to-reach 18-to-34-year-olds disappeared between May and December of 2021.

The VAB also said almost 7 billion Black ad impressions and more than 5.5 billion Hispanic ad impressions were not counted during that period. ■

The Association of National Advertisers said that the VAB, representing TV networks and distributors, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, have joined the ANA’s Cross-Media Measurement initiative.

The initiative aims to create a transparent system of measurement that restores essential metrics of campaign measurement and provides complete measures of all ad exposures, including deduplicated reach and frequency across all platforms.

It is also one of the challenges faced by Nielsen, which is trying to modernize its measurement systems to deal with viewing on multiple screens while facing growing criticism for undercounting traditional TV audiences.

Just this week, Nielsen told clients a software error resulted in some out-of-home viewing not being included in its national ratings. And ViacomCBS objected to Nielsen’s plan to include broadband-only homes in its local ratings service.

Also: ANA Names Team To Probe Programmatic Ad Buying

Earlier this year, Nielsen’s national ratings service lost its accreditation from the Media Rating Council–the industry’s seal of approval. That has emboldened Nielsen clients to seek alternative, up to date measurement options and encourage rivals to step up.

Advertisers, who pay a lot of the bills in the TV business, want to know that the dollars they spend are being seen by the consumers they want to reach and that their commercials are producing a return on investment.

“The VAB is extremely pleased to be joining a terrific group of top U.S. marketers in their quest for higher order cross-media measurement through the ANA’s CMM initiative,” said Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the VAB. “I believe 2022 and 2023 will be marked by seismic advances in sophisticated media performance metrics that give us all multi-dimensional insights on how brands grow across major video media options, and I’m convinced that real collaboration among top marketers, the media and the agencies will be the force that moves measurement mountains.”

“Cross-media measurement has been a significant industry barrier for years,” added 4As President and CEO Marla Kaplowitz. “The 4As and its members are committed to the ambitions of CMM and look forward to partnering to identify solutions to better understand the effectiveness of media investments.”

The ANA’s initiative intends to pilot a technical solution in 2022. It aims to build a privacy-preserving infrastructure that collects first-party ad impressions and content data for measurement purposes. The objective is to preserve the privacy of audiences and related data while enabling granularity of measurement for stability and longevity as media choices evolve.

“I wholeheartedly welcome VAB’s and the 4As’ participation in this important project,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “Our CMM project is designed to unify stakeholders spanning the entire advertising ecosystem and the success of any cross-media measurement initiative depends on the cooperation and collaboration of each sector involved in the equation. With this move we have made a major step in achieving that goal.” ■ 

Nielsen is telling clients that it didn’t include out-of-home viewing recorded by its Portable People Meters in its ratings going back to September 2020, compounding questions about the accuracy of its measurement system.

In a letter, Nielsen blamed the error on a software issue. 

“As a result, out-of-home viewing estimates may be understated. While there is little to no impact to most telecasts, we did find larger variances for events that tend to yield larger out-of-home audiences such as live sporting events,” Nielsen said in its letter.

Nielsen did not say now big the undercounts were.  Nielsen began adding out-of-home viewing to its ratings in 2020.

The new issue follows the revelation that Nielsen undercounted TV viewing during the pandemic. After prodding by the VAB — which represents the television networks — Nielsen and the Media Rating Council confirmed the undercount, saying it found that total usage of television by persons 18-49, the key demo used to sell advertising, was understated by approximately 2% to 6% for the February 2021 measurement period. 

In February, according to Nielsen, TV ad spending was $3.9 billion. A 1% undercount would represent $468 million and 6% would be $2.8 billion, the VAB said.

The Media Rating Council also withdrew its accreditation of Nielsen’s national ratings service, the equivalent of Nielsen losing the industry’s seal of approval.

With Nielsen under pressure, the industry has stepped up its efforts to find alternatives to Nielsen. NBCUniversal issued requests for proposals that have been returned by about 80 data and measurement companies. The VAB also has set up a Measurement Innovation Task Force to seek more up-to-date measurement approaches.

“Today’s announcement by Nielsen of more systemic errors that have further undercounted TV ratings for the last sixteen months is unfathomable, both for Nielsen and the buyers and sellers that use Nielsen data as trading currency,” said Sean Cunningham, CEO of the VAB.

“.While the VAB and our Measurement Innovation Task Force have been looking to build back confidence in Nielsen’s core measurement capabilities, the timing of this latest and stunning omission of OOH viewership not being counted across the growing broadband only home universe coincides with our recent discovery of significant defects in Nielsen’s overall plans to include broadband only homes in early 2022 for Local TV,” Cunningham said. “Given the unprecedented scale of Nielsen’s 2021 undercounting and the depths of discovered defects in their core competency on TV measurement, we are greatly concerned that Nielsen One is being built atop a broken and defective measurement and currency foundation.” 

Nielsen is in the process of building and launching Nielsen One, its new system for measuring viewing of programming and advertising across all screens in a consistent and comparable manner.

"As part of routine testing and quality controls, we recently identified an error that caused an understatement of reported out-of-home audiences for our National TV service,” Nielsen said in a statement. “While there is no impact to most telecasts, and no impact to local television, we did find some variances for events that tend to yield larger out-of-home audiences, such as live sporting events. The error has been corrected and Nielsen will be reissuing data from September 2020 to present in order to provide the industry with the most complete data."

Nielsen said the software issues would be corrected starting with its ratings for Dec. 22. Nielsen will also be reissuing its data from September 2020 through Dec. 2021.

The VAB, the trade group representing the networks and distributors, said it formed a Measurement Innovation Task Force to speed up innovation in media measurement and ad buying currencies.

NBCUniversal, which last month sent out requests for proposals to more than 50 data and analytics companies seeking ways to create a measurement system that was independent of the current, antiquated system and any single metric or provider, has signed up for the VAB Task Force.

Also Read: Nielsen’s David Kenny Fights Back After Accreditation Loss

The VAB took the lead in criticizing Nielsen for its performance during the pandemic. Because COVID-19 prevented it from sending employees to visit sample panel homes in person, the data coming from them undercounted viewing by between 2% and 6%. 

The situation was reviewed by the Media Rating Council, which last month suspended the accreditation of Nielsen’s National Ratings service. 

Also Read: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

“The time for action and innovation on measurement is now,“ VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham said. “That’s why I’m excited to announce the VAB’s new Measurement Innovation Task Force. Our role will be to immediately plug directly into a range of cross-industry initiatives, which first include the ANA's Cross-Media Measurement initiative, OpenAP’s Open ID and NBCUniversal's new cross-industry Measurement Innovation Forum.” 

In addition to joining the VAB’s Measurement Innovation Task Force, NBCU said it is creating a Measurement Innovation Forum.

“We’ve long advocated for a more open and accountable marketplace, built on a foundation of trust, transparency, and shared values," Kelly Abcarian, executive VP, measurement & impact, advertising & partnerships at NBCU, said in a blog post. “These efforts include our most recent call to move toward metrics that tell the full story.” 

NBCU‘s forum will work to explore, evaluate and expand opportunities to solve measurement challenges facing the industry, Abcarian said. 

Next week at the Advertising Research Foundation conference, NBCU plans to announce the participants in its forum, including media holding companies,  marketers and trade group. The VAB task force will participate in the forum to represent all media companies.

“This is a moment to lead transformation, rather than be led by it,“ Abcarian said. “Together — through both the Task Force and the Forum — our industry can build a measurement system that’s more transparent and trusted; that’s more interoperable, and enables uniformity across data sets, identities, and platforms; and that’s more accountable and beneficial to everyone. 

“In the next few weeks we’ll share details on all members for the new forum,“ she added. ”We’re excited to do our part in building the future of measurement with the entire industry — because, after all, measurement is a team sport.”

NIelsen, under fire for undercounting TV viewing during the pandemic, has asked that the accreditation process for the national TV rating service used to buy and sell billions of dollars worth of advertising be put on hiatus.

Also Read: Nielsen Has “Deep Rooted, Ongoing Performance Issues,’ MRC Says

Networks and distributors represented by their trade group, VAB, had called for NIelsen’s accreditation to be suspended. VAB also called for an audit of Nielsen’s rating system after it turned out that Nielsen was unable to properly manage its sample homes during the pandemic. 

Problems with the sample led to NIelsen reporting fewer people watching TV during the pandemic, the VAB charged. NIelsen said there had been little impact, but the MRC soon confirmed that underdelivery had occurred in both Nielsen’s national ratings and its local ratings.

Nielsen ratings services are constantly being reviewed by the MRC. MRC accreditation is important to Nielsen’s network and media-buying clients, who rely on the MRC to give Nielsen’s methodology its seal of approval.

Also Read: Discovery’s David Zaslav Blasts 'Antiquated’ ‘Unreliable’ Nielsen

Nielsen said a hiatus would enable it to focus on its fixing its panels and developing its new Nielsen One measurement system, which is designed to treat viewing on all platforms consistently. 

“While we remain confident in the integrity of our data and measurement, and fully support the audit process, we believe that moving to a hiatus allows us to concentrate our audit-related efforts on continuing to address panel concerns alongside the transformation of our National TV product and development of Nielsen One,” a Nielsen spokesman said. 

VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said Nielsen's actions only put off the inevitable.

“After months of Nielsen’s very public insistence that there nothing wrong with their ratings data, but now facing a slam-dunk VAB case for accreditation suspension, Nielsen has essentially announced ‘you can’t fire me, I quit’ just hours before the MRC suspension vote process is activated," Cunningham said.

" What cannot be evaded or dodged is the level of all-industry intervention coming to Nielsen with a mandate of change-or-die transparency needed for going forward with any real credibility. The VAB will be pursuing the case for radical Nielsen change with more voracity than ever," Cunningham said.

Nielsen said that since March, it has been working to get its panels back up to full strength. 

“We’re applying key learnings from the last 18 months and are actively making adjustments to our field operations that will inform our processes as we prepare for possible impact from surging COVID-19 variants, while also diligently ensuring the health and safety of our panel homes and people,” the NIelsen spokesman said. 

“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,” the spokesman concluded.

In the middle of its battle with Nielsen over under-counting viewing since the pandemic, the trade group representing the big networks and distributors has sent its members a report on how to use new metrics from sources other than Nielsen to measure and qualify audiences.

The VAB report, called A Fresh Take on Quantifying TV Audiences, was done in partnership with iSpot.tv, which focuses on measuring who is watching advertising using automatic content recognition technology to collect data from millions of Vizio smart TVs.

"This report was sent out to demonstrate how different metrics, particularly ad ratings, can quantify audiences. In our quest to provide the marketplace with a full perspective of TV viewership, we frequently utilize different approaches to TV audience measurement to ensure greater accuracy and expose marketers to new metrics," a VAB spokesperson said. 

Also Read: Another Nielsen Critic: iSpot Says Ad Ratings Rose During COVID

iSpot is one of dozens of newer companies offering ways to track viewing using more modern methodologies than Nielsen's sample panel-based systems. Its data is already being used by networks including NBCU and Discovery to help clients track the effectiveness of their campaigns.

The VAB this week asked the Media Rating Council to suspend its accreditation of Nielsen's National Rating Service. 

The VAB claimed that Nielsen didn't monitor its panel properly because it couldn't visit sample homes in person because of COVID protocols. As a result homes with little or no watching were included in the sample that should not have been. The result was data from Nielsen showing a drop in television usage during a pandemic that kept people home watching TV.

The MRC investigated the situation with Nielsen and agreed that TV audiences were being undercounted.

Nielsen promised to remedy the situation but VAB charges that little has changed. As a result, it is asking that Nielsen’s accreditation be suspended.

With Nielsen data being questioned, the VAB put out a report highlighting iSpot’s system for measuring TV audiences. It also reports that iSpot’s data shows that the number of chances brands had to reach households increased during the year of the pandemic by 6% year over year.

iSpot’s data also shows that viewers spent time watching TV in more dayparts and discovered and embraced new genres of programming and innovative formats that they might not have typically watched previously.

The VAB report offers some takeaways to people in the advertising business used to working with Nielsen data. 

It suggests that they “evaluate and understand the different approaches to TV audience measurement and the underlying methodologies of data providers within the ecosystem.”

The report advises that they “utilize multiple audience measurement providers when planning and buying your video investments to ensure a higher level of data accuracy.”

Finally it says “continually, and rigorously, analyze these multiple third-party data sources to ensure greater transparency, accuracy and accountability through the buying process.” 

“This report was sent out to demonstrate how different metrics, particularly ad ratings, can quantify audiences. In our quest to provide the marketplace with a full perspective of TV viewership, we frequently utilize different approaches to TV audience measurement to ensure greater accuracy and expose marketers to new metrics," a VAB spokesperson said. 

The TV networks and distributors represented by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) are calling on the Media Rating Council to suspend the accreditation of Nielsen’s national ratings service, saying the ratings agency hasn't made changes since undercounting TV homes during the pandemic.

VAB charges that in multiple, major and persistent ways Nielsen has violated the “minimum standards for a media research ratings service” established by the MRC.

Earlier this year, the VAB charged — and the MRC confirmed — that Nielsen was undercounting viewing during the pandemic.

The reason for the undercount was the way Nielsen managed its sample homes. Because of COVID protocols, Nielsen staffers couldn’t visit those sample homes. As a result, some households were included in the ratings that shouldn’t have been, including some where no TV was watched because they had been vacated.

"We are fully committed to returning to pre-COVID operations and are working closely with and through the MRC to address any outstanding issues and requests and are committed to their process concerning accreditation," Nielsen said in a statement.

The MRC said it takes the concerns of the VAB and its members seriously.

"MRC has been actively pursuing these issues, both with our TV Committee as a whole, as well as directly with Nielsen’s management, and we plan to meet with our TV Committee again in the near future to assess where the situation with Nielsen’s National Service currently stands," the MRC said.

The MRC said that it conducts an independent accreditation process and its current assessment of the Nielsen National Television Service remains in process and that service is currently accredited.

"We will keep the marketplace informed of any subsequent actions as the situation warrants," The MRC said.

Also Read: Contradicting Nielsen, Comscore Says TV Use Didn’t Fall in Pandemic

The VAB put the cost of the undercounted impressions that couldn’t be sold by the networks at more than $2 billion.

The MRC also said that Nielsen undercounted viewing in its ratings in local markets.

Since then, VAB said Nielsen’s panel has not recovered. The number of people in the sample in June was down 18% compared to February 2020.

Black and Hispanic viewers continue to be underrepresented, as do younger demos. The panel issues also affect homes with more viewers and higher viewing households.

The VAB is demanding that in order to restore the confidence of ad buyers and sellers, Nielsen need to restore its panels to pre-COVID levels, particularly among Hispanics and larger homes.

It wants an audit on the full impact reducing the size of the panel had on viewing metrics.

Networks and distributors represented by the VAB want more information about how much undercounting of viewers happened at Nielsen during the COVID-19 pandemic before the annual upfront market, where networks sell about 70% of their ad inventory for the broadcast year take place.

Also Read: How Nielsen Undercount Revelations Will Affect The Upfront

After weeks of pushing, Nielsen conceded and the Media Rating Council confirmed that a simulation of Nielsen data that total TV usage was underestimated among adults 18-49 by 2% to 6%. People using television was under-reported by 1% to 5%. 

The undercounts were the result of defects in Nielsen’s panel caused by the pandemic, which prevented Nielsen from overseeing participating homes with in-person visits.

The numerical guidance from the MRC is “an unprecedented occurrence, to say the least,” said Sean Cunningham, CEO of the VAB.

The MRC’s announcement Monday came after months of complaints by the networks and distributors, ”Nielsen’s biggest clients,” Cunningham noted one week before most of the major programmers are scheduled to hold their upfront presentations.

Negotiations over buying and selling billions of dollars worth of advertising time will follow.

Buyers and sellers will use this new data as they attempt to make deals, with estimates of how many people watched TV this year factoring into next year's expectations.

“Had this been done in the proper time frame, the market by now would have had an expedited analysis on a full audit that would have given us a heck of a lot more concrete factors and numerical analysis,” Cunningham said. “That would have put a lot more certainty around the understatement.”

In a $70 billion TV advertising market, even a single-digit change is viewership can have a huge financial impact.

Cunningham cited Nielsen figures that there was $3.9 billion in ad sales during February alone. Based on that, a 1% undercount would cost the industry $468 million in revenue over the course of a year. A 6% undercount would cost $2.8 billion.

Once negotiations start, the networks and the media agencies will handle the data about Nielsen’s undercount “collaboratively,” Cunningham said. “They’re good and great trading partners and have been for a long time. They will take what’s been learned today and work through it and apply it.”

The buyers and sellers “really should have had guidance months ago,” he said.  Still needed are “real metrics around the extent of under counting.” 

Cunningham said that so far, Nielsen has only “put its best foot forward” in addressing the situation. “All we saw was, to say the least, the tip of the iceberg,” he added, saying he couldn’t comment beyond that.

Since VAB and its members started seeking answers at the beginning of the year, Nielsen has provided mainly delay and denial, Cunningham said.

In a statement, Nielsen maintained that it has been “fully transparent in collaborating with the MRC.” It added that will continue to “rigorously” work with the MRC and its clients “to understand the impacts of both the pandemic and changing consumer viewing behaviors on data and analysis.” 

But Cunningham said, “there was a tremendous amount that was never disclosed. It took an enormous, enormous amount of unprecedented pushing to get Nielsen to do any level of objective and constructive analysis.”

The VAB still wants audits of February and the earlier months that were impacted by COVID-19 and how Nielsen handled its sample homes during the pandemic.

“Had not Nielsen’s largest clients done these exercises and challenged them with these analyses, these would never have come to light,” Cunningham said.

The Media Rating Council said that Nielsen's numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic undercounted viewers, as was alleged by networks and distributors represented by the VAB.

Also Read: How Nielsen Undercount Revelations Will Affect the Upfront

In a statement, MRC said it believes that total usage of television by persons 18-49--the key demo used to sell advertising--was understated by approximately 2% to 6% for the February 2021 measurement period. 

The MRC added that persons using television estimates that persons using television estimates in the persons 18-49 group was understated by a range of 1% to 5% in February 2021.

VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said the MRC statement was “just the tip of the iceberg,” He noted that it contradicts what Nielsen has been saying and calls for "greater scrutiny" of the situation.

Also Read: Contradicting Nielsen, Comscore Says TV Use Didn’t Fall in Pandemic

The MRC estimate of Nielsen’s undercount covers just one month. Cunningham noted that in February, TV ad spending, according to Nielsen was $3.9 billion. A 1% undercount would represent $468 million and 6% would be $2.8 billion.

The undercount, according to the VAB was the result of changes in the way the Nielsen panel was maintained during the pandemic. COVID-19 protocols meant Nielsen couldn’t send its field people into people’s homes. As a result, some homes that were no longer watching TV for unclear reasons were left in the sample.

Cunningham noted that Nielsen's earnings last week contained $100 million in operations cost savings from having closed field and call centers. That means Nielsen profited from the changes it made in maintaining its sample, he said. 

In its statement, the MRC noted that "the impacts to estimates will vary among different demographic groups and dayparts, and percentage differences, when applied to program estimates, can be misleading because of the small size of the absolute ratings of many programs, which can distort change percentages,"

MRC also notes, and users of the data "should keep in mind, that this range of impact, as well as the originally reported ratings themselves, are estimates with standard errors associated with them. However, we believe the directional impact noted above is appropriate to consider in assessing the estimates originally reported by Nielsen."

Nielsen said that the analysis released by the MRC was implemented by Nielsen as requested by the MRC. 

Nielsen noted that 93% of C3 ratings for people 18 to 49 for major networks saw no more than a 0.02 change in ratings points.

“We will continue to work with the MRC on other analyses in the future.,” Nielsen said. “Throughout the pandemic, Nielsen has been fully transparent in collaborating with the MRC and focused on procedural changes to support its panelists, people and the integrity of currency metrics used by the industry.”

Nielsen added that it  has “aggressively returned to pre-COVID maintenance procedures and will continue to rigorously work with the MRC and its clients to understand the impacts of both the pandemic and changing consumer viewing behaviors on data and analysis.” 

VAB's Cunningham said that Nielsen's biggest clients, the TV networks and distributors, began noticing "defects" in Nielsen data in April 2002. The tip off was the the Nielsen data was showing drops in total TV usage, whether linear TV, streaming or gaming.

"Unbeknownst to clients, they had made extensive changes" in June of 2020 to procedures that led to homes that in normal times would have been excluded from the sample being left in last year.

Overall the size of Nielsen's sample dropped 20% to 29,500 homes. But another 9,400 homes, or 32% of those remaining, were impaired or malfunctioning, Cunningham said.

The pressure continues on Nielsen as data from rival Comscore contradict Nielsen’s metrics showing that TV usage went down during the pandemic.

Nielsen’s data has been criticized by networks and distributors represented by the VAB. The VAB contends that Nielsen is caused under-reporting TV usage because of  faulty reporting from homes in the Nielsen sample that Nielsen was unable to verify because Nielsen had to stop doing in-home maintenance while following COVID-19 protocols.

VAB last week noted that as soon as Nielsen resumed in-home visits to its panel households, reported TV usages went up. 

VAB has asked for an independent audit of the situation.

Nielsen has defended how it maintained its panel during the pandemic and said that whatever variance was caused by sample issues was not significant. It refused the request for a special audit, noting that it is working on an ongoing audit of its local market ratings with the Media Rating Council.

During its first-quarter earnings call Thursday, Nielsen CEO David Kenny noted the controversy.

“Without a doubt, the pandemic affected audience behavior,” Kenny said. “As with any change or disruptive event, such as extreme weather in the past, we recorded our changes with the Media Rating Council, or MRC, and committed to assessing the full impact of the changes as soon as possible.”

Kenny said Nielsen will continue to work with the MRC and “our panel remains robust and representative, and the integrity of our ratings estimates remains high.”

VAB is expected to revisit the issue in a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon.

Comscore’s data shows total households ratings were largely stable from March 2020 through March 2021, falling a bit more recent.

Also Read: ViacomCBS Expands TV Ratings Deal with Comscore

“You can look at it at a market level, big markets, small markets, and you can look at it nationally and you see continuity and consistency in viewing,” said Comscore chief revenue officer Carol Hinnant.

“As the world has gone back to work in the last couple of months and kids are back in school,, you’re starting to see some declines. But I think that’s to be expected,” Hinnant said.

With the way Comscore collects viewing information, by using return path data from set-top boxes, “during the pandemic, our data set was growing, and the panel was suffering declines,” Hinnant said.

Comscore relies on “big data” from millions of cable set-top boxes to measure viewing, while Nielsen relies more heavily on its panel of viewers. NIelsen maintains its system yields superior results.

In response to Comscore’s data, Nielsen said in a statement: “When a measurement service relies on big data alone, a third party demographic provider is often utilized to assign household characteristics. However, based on our own research, their data can be subject to inaccuracies. It is also important to note that Nielsen’s metrics are fundamentally different from our competitors.

“While competitors report on an ‘opportunity to view’ basis, Nielsen is the only measurement provider able to measure viewers at an individual level. An 'opportunity to view' metric assumes all persons that live in the home are viewing if the TV is on. So, for example, if there are 3 people in the home and 3 TVs are on, it assumes that there are a total of 9 viewers. This inaccurate approach will elevate HUTs/PUTs and ratings,” Nielsen said.

“It’s very hard to have precise measurement from a small sample,” Comscore’s Hinnant countered. She called the panel method of measuring viewing outdated. “We’ve built an engine for the 21st century.”

Comscore’s system is passive, not requiring activity from viewers beyond clicking a remote control and watching something, unlike Nielsen, which required its sample families to push buttons to indicate who is watching.

“You get that reliable source of data coming in day in and day out, with every hour accounted for in all 210 markets,” Hinnant said, “And it’s one methodology for local and national consistently.”

Also Read: Nielsen Says COVID-19 Has Disrupted Local Rating Panels

The controversy has attracted interest in local markets as well.

Erik Schrader, GM of Gray Television’s duopoly stations in Cleveland, said he reached out to media buyers to make sure that they were aware of the controversy.

Schrader said his station stopped using Nieisen in 2018. He called the numbers reported by the VAB troubling, and a concern for the industry as a whole, including viewers, agencies and advertisers.

“Even though we don’t, a lot of people still use Nielsen and I think the veracity of those numbers is hugely important,” he said.

“I did reach out to all our local and national agencies, and the message wasn't to leave Nielsen. But the message was make sure that if you are a Nielsen client, you should be making sure your numbers are accurate holding them accountable,” Schrader said. 

“It was kind of shocking to hear that Nielsen believes that viewership was down for the greater part of last year. That certainly flies in the face of not just anecdotal evidence, but there are other measurement companies out there,” he said. 

Networks and distributors represented by the VAB, after complaining that Nielsen under-reported TV usage during the pandemic, said that reported TV usage has turned up noticeably since Nielsen resumed at-home servicing of its sample homes.

The VAB said that during the pandemic, Nielsen’s estimate of Total homes using television dropped because 9,400 homes in Nielsen’s sample weren’t properly supervised. 

“Less than a month later, the effects on effects on Nielsen’s Total Homes Using Television measure, which saw steady COVID period declines throughout 2020, have already started to reverse in April 2021, VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said.

Nielsen said the changes in the sample resulting from COVID disrupting how it interacts with homes didn’t have a significant impact on its numbers.

The VAB said the new data proved its claims about impaired measurement were justified.

Also Read: Nielsen Gains From Unit Sale And Raises Forecast for 2021

“For months, Nielsen has both denied and delayed the VAB’s repeated calls for reviews and transparency,” Cunningham said. “While this recent reversal of its exaggerated 2020 TUT declines are an important start, it is only one piece of a much larger issue. The MRC audit, that is currently underway, is the right next step toward providing the advertising marketplace with meaningful insights and remedies to Nielsen’s 2020 COVID TV currency audience estimates.”

Nielsen reiterated that it is working with the MRC to get to get the industry's questions about COVID viewing answered.

"Nielsen is and has been fully engaged, in collaboration with the MRC, industry partners and clients, to provide the advertising marketplace with transparent and meaningful insights into Nielsen’s 2020 COVID TV currency audience estimates," a Nielsen spokesperson said.

"Last year, as communities around the world were impacted by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, we innovated our panel procedures to protect the safety of our panelists and field staff and the integrity of our ratings, developing new ways to recruit and maintain our panels," the spokesperson said. "We were able to return to pre-COVID processes and procedures in March this year. We will share a detailed analysis for review with the MRC and our clients, and feel confident we will continue to provide the industry with the data they rely upon to transact with confidence."

Nielsen turned down a demand by its network and distributor clients for an independent audit of the way it measured TV viewing during the pandemic, saying its system is already thoroughly audited by the Media Rating Council.

The VAB, the trade group representing much of the broadcast and cable industry, claims the number of homes in Nielsen’s sample panel shrunk by 20% during the pandemic and that resulted in an undercount of people using television. 

Also Read: Scott N. Brown, Measurement Chief, Set to Leave Nielsen

“Nielsen’s refusal to take any type of action, in the face of a research-backed request from its key industry stakeholders, is profoundly disappointing and a massive disservice to a TV marketplace that has had a stellar track record for collaboration and transparency,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “This response -- or lack thereof -- denying a third-party evaluation of its COVID data is a glaring negative outlier from the market’s currency provider and partner.”

Nielsen maintains that the shrinkage in its sample--resulting from not being able to visit sample homes in person--did not significantly impact its viewership numbers. And it said it has been clear with the VAB and its clients what steps it took during the pandemic to handle its sample homes and keep the quality of its estimates consistent.

"Third party auditing has always been a vital part of serving as the industry currency and our products undergo a comprehensive audit process with the Media Rating Council (MRC) on an annual basis. Nielsen's existing MRC audit process exists to ensure confidence and trust in the audience estimates we produce," Nielsen said in a statement.

"We have been clear and transparent with the MRC and our clients on every change in protocol we needed to make during COVID to keep our people and panelists safe. The decisions we made adhered to Federal, State and Local government guidelines as well as at the recommendation of medical experts," the ratings company said.

Nielsen added that it conducted its own assessment of the drivers of the reported audience estimates in the white paper it shared with the VAB and the industry last week.

“Our work with the MRC, the independent body created for this very reason, is ongoing and should serve the purpose of an independent audit. Since VAB members are also MRC members, they should feel free to engage directly with the MRC. A single third party audit is the best approach for the industry and we will work closely with the MRC on all audit requests," Nielsen said.

Networks and distributors are demanding an audit of Nielsen, claiming that shrinkage of Nielsen’s panel during the COVID pandemic has resulted in undercounting the number of people using television.

The goal of the audit is to check the accuracy of Nielsen's numbers and how they were impacted by a 20% decline in number of homes participating in Nielsen's national TV panel

The VAB went public with its complaints last week and Nielsen responded that despite the drop in its sample size, its viewership numbers were not significantly impacted.

“I am conveying to you in the strongest possible terms the VAB’s profound dissatisfaction and concerns with Nielsen’s handling of our industry’s months-long urging for right-sized remedies to shortfall in the company’s COVID period TV usage and measurement data,” said Sean Cunningham, CEO of the VAB, the trade group representing networks and distributors, in a litter to Nielsen CEO David Kenny on Wednesday.

The VAB called on Nielsen to participate in an immediate third party audit by Ernst & Young, the auditor for the Media Rating Council. It also wants an audit by an independent third part auditor and a disclosure by Nielsen of a report on the 9,400 sample homes where Nielsen plans to resume in-house maintenance now that COVID restrictions have been relaxed.

“Nielsen is committed to providing reliable and accurate data to the media industry. We received VAB's letter and we are in the process of evaluating our next steps," Nielsen said Thursday.

Last week Nielsen published a blog post and a white paper that among other things notes a small change in the standard error for Nielsen’s ratings projections. Nielsen urged its ad selling and ad buying customers to take the standard error into account when conducting business.

The VAB called that response inadequate.

“Nielsen is the foundation for trading currency in the TV video ad marketplace, both the $40+ billion-dollar national TV buy/sell marketplace and the overall $65+ billion-dollar marketplace. With a fast approaching national TV “upfront,” the marketplace needs clear visibility into all COVID-period shortfalls and accurate overview of any exaggerated TV usage,” Cunningham said in his letter.

Because of the way Nielen data is intertwined with the advertising business “exaggerated multi-week or multi-quarter declines can produce a cascade of negative financial consequences,’ he said.

VAB has asked Nielsen to respond by April 19.

Nielsen, under fire from its TV network clients, defended its methodology and said its numbers, which show big declines in viewing since the beginning of the pandemic, are accurate.

The ratings company denied claims by the Video Advertising Bureau that viewing was being under-reported because Nielsen allowed its panel size to shrivel during the pandemic and said that changes in viewers' behavior and the lack of original episodes of shows and the cancellation of games by sports leagues caused a drop in viewing.

Also Read: Networks, Distributors Blast Nielsen For COVID Response That Caused Plunge In TV Usage Numbers

“Nielsen looked internally at its own process for estimating the ratings via our observational panel, a source of audience estimates that fuels the media industry,” Nielsen said in a blog post Friday. “While this drove a sample size smaller than it was pre-COVID, it remains robust and representative”.

Nielsen said that total TV viewing has declined in recent years. In the first quarter of 2019, on average, 20.8% of people 2 years old and older were using television across the total day. That declined to 19.1% in the first quarter of 2021.

That number is bad news for the networks, which are getting ready to sell advertising for the 2021-22 season in the upfront market.

Nielsen did say that as a result of the 20% decrease in its sample, the standard error for its estimates is up slightly.  

"What we see is despite the decline in the sample. There is no material statistical difference, right the error has increased but the confidence interval is still high as we have reported," Mainak Mazumdar, Nielsen’s chief research officer, said in an interview with Broadcasting+Cable.

Also read: Nielsen Says Ad-Supported Streaming Rose While Ad Spending Fell 

The error for February 2020 for primetime households using television was plus or minute 0.229. For February 2021, it was 0.26. 

That means that for February 2020, Nielsen was confident that when reporting a 48.67 ratings estimate, that the ratings could have been as low as 48.44 or as high as 48.90. 

For the same 48.67 rating in February 2021, based on the reduced sample size and updated weights, the estimate could have been as low as 48.41 or as high as 48.93, Nielsen said.

“We feel the standard error needs to be accounted for when folks are forecasting their inventory for rest of the year into upfront, Mazumdar said

In its blog post, Nielsen said that advertising buyers and sellers should “consider” the many factors affecting TV at this as they look at the numbers.

The VAB was looking for more than that, saying that a research paper about standard error was not what the industry needed at this point.

Mazumdar said that it has been going back over the behaviors being reported out of the sample homes. Nielsen has found that its numbers reflect what the viewing--or non viewing--that was happening in those homes.

“We're going back and we don't we don't see anything there [that wold cause us] to make adjustments,” Mazumdar said. 

“The behavior change is a big deal because as we go back to these homes we see these are legitimate changes that these households made in their lives that impacts their media behavior,” he said. 

Also read: Nielsen Readies Big Data Metrics For TV Advertising 

In its blog post, Nielsen noted that the pandemic has both bottlenecked and accelerated aspects of the media industry, acting as a polarizing factor for consumer segments

Those changes were spurred by production disruptions caused by COVID. Nielsen said there were 13% fewer new episodes on traditional TV in October 2020 compared to the same month in 2019. That led to a 75% increase in programming repeats. 

Premieres of shows were 29 days later at the start of the 2020-21 TV season compared to the previous year.

While traditional TV undoubtedly declined, total minutes streamed directly to the TV glass, across streaming-capable homes, increased from 117.7 billion to 132 billion, Nielsen said.

“Ahead of this year’s TV upfronts/newfronts, media buyers and sellers need to take heed of these trends and understand the unique impact COVID has had not just on programming and content, but on all aspects of the industry,” Nielsen said in its post.

Nielsen’s Mazumdar also took issue with the VAB’s contention that it had abandoned its panel during the pandemic.

Nielsen, like other companies, was disrupted by COVID. “We adapted very quickly to these challenges by making modifications to our procedures as well as developing new ways to safely recruit, install and maintain our industry-leading panels,” he said. 

Those changes were spelled out to clients last year.

Those changes included remote recruitment of sample homes, introduction of a new nano-meter that members of Nielsen panel homes can install themselves, and the use of proximity visits that allowed the company to perform maintenance on its panelists and equipment from a safe distance.

Now that pandemic appear to be winding down, Nielsen’s field force is fully back at work, Mazumdar said. 

“We want to make sure we go back to the sample size w had in a pre-COVID level.” he said.

The trade group representing networks and distributors blasted Nielsen claiming that the measurement company’s viewership numbers are much lower than they should be because Nielsen has not taken proper care of the panel it uses to measure TV usage during the COVID pandemic.

Because of those “TV measurement defects” there has been “systematic under-counting that has been perpetuated in this COVID Nielsen sample since last March,” said Sean Cunningham, CEO of VAB. UPDATE: Nielsen, in a blog post, defended the accuracy of its COVID era panel measurements.

Read Also: Nielsen Says COVID-19 Has Disrupted Local Rating Panels

The VAB wants Nielsen to at least provide the industry with estimates for how much its numbers are off as the annual upfront advertising sales market approaches. The VAB's data shows the measurement issues had a big effect on the reporting of total television use. Cunningham said he had no idea how much impact it had on the numbers for viewing of ad-supported TV specifically, or what that meant in terms of lost advertising dollars.

In a statement Nielsen said. “We have confidence in the fidelity of our ratings estimates and are focused on the continued quality of our panel.” (Nielsen’s complete statement is below.)  

Read Also: Nielsen Sets Major Changes in Program, Ad Measurement

Cunningham said that since the pandemic began in March 2020, the size of Nielsen’s national panel has shrunk 20% from 36,975 homes to 29,456. Nielsen largely stopped visiting its panelists homes to make sure they were still properly participating because of the pandemic.

Read Also: Fort Myers Stations Sign With Comscore, Claiming Undercount by Nielsen

That decline in panel homes correlates with a drop in reported total TV set usage from a 15.1% share of people in March 2020 to 11.2% in March 2021, a 25.8% drop. Even streamers using TV was down slightly, to 6.0% from 6.2%, among 18 to 34 year olds. “How could that possibly be true,” Cunningham said, noting that the pandemic people were home and seemed to be spending a lot of time watching TV.

Weekly reach of total TV use by people age 2 and up dropped from 92% in 2019 to 89% in 2020 and 87% so far in 2021.

Cunningham noted that the industry expects to see year-to-year declines in ratings as people switch to streaming. “The multiscreen TV business has been creating and championing these new video opportunities for many successive quarters. We’re the ones who are putting out the streaming innovations right now and are counting streaming subscribers,” he said. “The challenge right now is there’s no visibility into what are the actual declines and what are the exaggerated declines.”

Because Nielsen didn't properly maintain its panel, it now has 20% fewer minority households and much fewer households with four or more people in them and homes with three or more TV sets, VAB said. Those homes tend to be heavy TV users.

At the same time, the number of homes in the sample registering no TV viewing at all rose 120%. Normally homes not reporting any viewing would be pulled from the sample because the family is no longer there, and replaced.

Cunningham said the networks began noticing unusual ratings activity over the summer and the increase in homes not using TV in January. They pointed those out to Nielsen and tried to work with the ratings company rather than going to the press with their concerns, he said.

Nielsen responded in March by saying that customers should “use judgment” when working with the COVID-era data.

“Using judgment is not a way to help set price and its not the kind of transparency we need,” Cunningham said.

Nielsen on Friday released a white paper explaining its view of ratings during COVID on Friday. Cunningham, before the paper was released, said his members have heard that the paper will be about “standard error” but not offer actionable solutions, including getting a range of how inaccurate the current data is.

“A white paper on standard error falls way short of what we think the marketplace is owed,” he said.

Nielsen said the report will show “that the audience estimates are in line with trends observed via other data sources, and we see no evidence to suggest that changes made during COVID to the panel have materially changed the audience estimates as reported.”

Cunningham said VAB members were particularly disappointed in Nielsen because when the pandemic hit the networks, advertisers and other suppliers and vendors all collaborated and cooperated to come up with unprecedented ways to do business given an unprecedented set of circumstances.

As soon as they could, the networks began producing shows under more costly COVID protocols. And cable companies found ways to get into customers’ homes to maintain service., he said.

“Nielsen was an outlier,” not going into its panelists' homes in order to maintain the quality of its measurement service, Cunningham said.

“The COVID casualty of Nielsen accuracy could have been avoided,” he said.

Here is Nielsen’s statement:

"Over the course of the last year, COVID has disrupted lives, families, organizations and businesses. Nielsen is no different. We leaned in, kept the panel, our people and the ratings estimates safe and, like many of our clients, continued to operate. 

In early March we began our return to pre-COVID maintenance protocols and, in concert with local government guidance, resumed in-home field visits when it was safe to do so with the goal of returning to normal as quickly as possible. While we have always been in the field, our return to in-home visits helps maintain our representative measurement panel and allows us to execute our Nielsen One vision for true, comparable cross-platform metrics.

We have confidence in the fidelity of our ratings estimates and are focused on the continued quality of our panel. 

Tomorrow we are releasing research that takes a close look at both the integrity of our panel data and how audience viewership has shifted during COVID.  Our research has shown that the audience estimates are in line with trends observed via other data sources, and we see no evidence to suggest that changes made during COVID to the panel have materially changed the audience estimates as reported. The research also takes a look at the value and impact that new content has in the marketplace, overall changes in premiere content scheduling and how streaming platforms play a significant role in the future of the entire media landscape. We are working alongside clients to help the industry understand the true impact COVID has had on these accelerated shifts in audience behaviors.

We have been fully transparent with clients and the MRC and will continue to guide the industry through the multiple factors that have influenced audience viewership during these unprecedented times.”

In recent years, savvy advertisers—particularly those working with innovative young direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands—have accelerated their paths to TV advertising, upending historical patterns in which brands slowly built presences in other channels for years before launching their first TV efforts. Since the onset of COVID-19, this trend has increased dramatically, with young DTC brands racing to fill the void left by traditional TV advertisers that cancelled campaigns amid the pandemic.

This sudden shift sets the stage for a potential sea change within the competitive landscape of TV advertising in the coming years—provided that the brands that are accelerating their entry into TV are seeing the returns needed to continue their investments. Which begs the question: Do brands that launch their first TV campaign earlier in their lives see a greater impact on their digital performance than more-established brands?

To explore the implications of brands entering the TV advertising space earlier in their life cycles, Effectv and VAB recently took on an expansive analysis of hundreds of brands, both DTC and non-DTC, that have turned to TV as a way to drive their businesses forward. Let’s take a deeper dive into the motivations of these brands and the results that their TV efforts have delivered to date. 

The Pandemic-Driven Shift to TV

The diversification of advertisers within the TV space in 2020 has been swift and significant. According to a VAB analysis, nearly $460 million entered the national TV marketplace in the first half of 2020 from 110 first-time national advertisers across 59 categories. Impressively, nearly 70 percent of new first-half national TV dollars were invested during Q2, the heart of the pandemic. 

There’s a number of reasons why these young DTC brands are now accelerating their paths to TV advertising. These include the continued expansion and evolution of targeting and measurement capabilities within the TV space, both of which create greater efficiencies and lower costs of entry in TV. But it goes deeper than that. The legitimizing effect of TV advertising for brands, along with the medium’s enablement of deeper brand storytelling, are rapidly making TV a must-have for the type of growth that today’s young startups need to deliver. 

The Outsized Impact of TV Advertising for Young Brands

Given the short-term, lower-cost TV inventory opportunity opened by the pandemic, it’s not terribly surprising that more early stage companies started to experiment with TV advertising. But according to our analysis, the results these brands are achieving suggest that they are going to continue to invest—and likely attract more and more young brands like themselves to the channel. 

For our analysis with Effectv, we looked at the average monthly unique website visitors that were recorded in relation to the TV campaign launches for 190 new TV advertisers. When we examined results according to the age of the advertising companies, interesting patterns emerged. While both DTC and non-DTC brands across all life stages saw an immediate double-digit increase in unique visitors to their digital platforms during their TV launch month, the results were even more striking among younger companies. 

According to our analysis, younger brands (3 years old or less) saw the largest lift—23 percent—in average website traffic within their launch month alone. Younger DTC brands are particularly aggressive as they challenge the incumbent brands in their spaces. They’re spending more (33-36 percent more) and advertising more consistently than the older brands, resulting in a greater return on their investment. The results speak for themselves. 

TV can serve as a great validator for new brands, bringing swift credibility and scale, fast-tracking them to become household names quicker than those confined to digital channels. But our analysis also found that TV’s power as a growth engine isn’t confined to young brands. Across all measures, we found that TV campaigns drove improved results across brands, DTC and non-DTC alike, regardless of age. 

As the economy accelerates and younger brands seize their opportunity to challenge incumbents on their own turf, the TV advertising landscape will look a lot different than it did back in 2019. Established brands that continue to invest in TV advertising will be able to hold their ground and catapult their businesses forward. But in areas where legacy brands pull back their TV spend amid the uncertainty of the pandemic, there will be no shortage of hungry young brands waiting to battle it out. 

VAB, the trade group representing the video industry, is an insights-driven organization that inspires marketers to reimagine their media strategies resulting in smarter, more educated decisions that drive business growth.    

TV advertising gives brands a quick boost, but a sustained presence on air provides the biggest lift, according to a new study from Comcast’s Effectv and VAB, the trade group representing TV networks and distributors.

The study looked at both direct-to-consumer brands and more traditional brands and found that both type of brands, whether new or old, see measurable results from TV advertising.

With the 140 DTC brands studies, TV advertising provided an immediate double-digit increase in unique visitors to their digital platforms during their launch month, compared to the three-month average prior to the campaign. The lift came whether the DTC brand was new or more established.

For non-DTC brands 50 companies were analyzed, with some younger than 20 years, the rest older. The average non-DTC brand also saw a double-digit increase to its digital platforms during their TV launch month.

Beyond getting a quick boost from TV advertising, the study noted that a sustained presence on TV provided brands with an even more pronounced lift, particularly for younger brands. Unique website visitors for young brands during months with TV advertising were 50% higher than their pre-launch visitor normal. Older brands saw a 21% increase in website visitors.

“Over the last few years, savvy data-driven marketers have accelerated the advertising journey by introducing TV earlier in their brand life cycle,” said Jason Wiese, senior VP, director of strategic Insights at the VAB. “These younger brands spend aggressively and advertise more consistently than their competitors resulting in higher engagement and better digital outcomes. Our findings confirm the most effective way for brands to challenge incumbents and establish themselves within a category is through TV advertising.”

The report, entitled The Halo Effect: TV as a Growth Engine, is the third report released as part of Effectv’s Halo Effect Series. Effectv has worked with TV Squared, MediaSciences and VAB on the reports.

“This study establishes that TV is a critical growth engine for brands at any life stage,” said James Rothwell, VP, global agency, brand & industry relations, Comcast Advertising. “This is especially important today, as economic uncertainty makes it even more important that brands build a media mix that will reach new audiences and drive measurable growth. And for newer brands, who are still establishing their story and identity in market, TV presents an opportunity to ‘legitimize’ their products, bringing credibility and scale in ways no other advertising medium can.”

Marketing messages about diversity and inclusiveness also bring business success, according to a study of more than 3,300 TV spots from over 50 brands over the past five years by VAB, the trade group for the TV industry’s top advertising sellers.

The study, titled Do The Right Thing: How Diversity and Inclusion Drives Brand Outcomes, found that inclusive ad campaigns drive strong attention and increase attention for brands and that marketers embracing topics that resonate with consumers see improved engagement metrics, including increases in social conversations, online video views and searches. 

Ultimately, inclusive advertising campaigns grow the bottom line for businesses that decided to run them.

“Creating increased customer activation and brand growth in the current economic and business environment is a major challenge for marketers,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “Motivating under leveraged customer segments with messages that genuinely resonate can ignite business results. Do The Right Thing provides statistical evidence that embracing diversity and inclusion as a core brand component leads to positive business outcomes, such as increased engagement across each stage of a customer’s path to purchase, as well as growth in sales.”

VAB said that in the current business environment where every dollar is being closely watched and results are being closely scrutinized, it wanted to see the relationship between advertising that focuses on diversity and inclusion and business outcomes.

To do its research, VAB said it used data from measurement services including iSpot.tv and Comscore along with publicly available company sales figures.

The report also includes 20 case studies illustrating the findings.

In one campaign that ran earlier this year, Target ran an ad features Beatrice Dixon, the founder of The Honey Pot, to support minority female-owned businesses. VAB found that the ad had one of the retailer’s highest attention scores and sales of Honey Pot items increased 20% to 30% during the month after the campaign launched.

VAB also cited Nike, which has been running ads since September 2018 using the theme of people pursuing their dreams featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback kneeled during the national anthem before games, setting off a controversy. The ads have resulted in record-breaking sales and a new high for third quarter revenue. Sales have continued to climb each quarter since the Dream Crazy commercial started running.

Other brands in the report include Third Love, Samuel Adams, Pantene, Barbie, Tylenol, Zola, Toyota and Procter & Gamble

To judge the success of campaigns, it looked at each stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness and consideration to intent and sales.

VAB found that several techniques worked best in campaigns, including showcasing real, authentic inspirational voices, embracing people’s strengths and vulnerabilities, promoting empowerment, supporting their community, speaking their language authentically, creating products for underrepresented people and taking a stand for social justice.

The do that brands need to embrace diversity in their DNA, campaigns need to be “real” to be effective and know that video is a strong platform for inclusivity messages.

The report concludes that doing “the right thing” by developing and investing ni diverse, inclusive campaigns grow the bottom line, that marketers should consider ways other than advertising to tell consumers about their efforts to be inclusive and, when relevant to the brands, marketers should consider creating in-language executions to more strongly relate to consumers.

Under pressure from clients who felt blindsided, Nielsen will include out-of-home viewing in its national ratings starting in September as originally planned.

On Thursday, Nielsen told clients that it was delaying adding out-of-home viewing to ratings because of complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We regret any disruption we may have caused you, your customers, and the market this week. Going forward, we are committed to ensuring a more complete, inclusive, and transparent process as the currency evolves with changing consumer behavior,” Nielsen CEO David Kenny said in a letter sent to clients late Friday.

TV networks had been counting on selling those extra viewers to advertisers--especially in sports programming--and complained.

ViacomCBS called the Wednesday decision “unacceptable and unjustifiable” and VAB, the industry trade group representing the biggest TV ad sellers, sent an "urgent" letter to Kenny imploring the measurement company to integrate the out-of-home data "without delay."

In his letter Friday, Kenny said that “after speaking with many clients and learning more about your specific agreements for the upcoming season, it became clear that we had misunderstood the extent to which upfront deals have already been agreed to using out-of-home metrics. Given the circumstances, we recognize that a delay would cause greater disruption to the industry than maintaining our original plan.”

The VAB expressed relief that Nielsen moves quickly to resolve what could have been a problem in the middle of an already chaotic upfront market.

“While gratified by the speed with which Nielsen reversed their postponement plan, it was crystal clear that a quick reversal was Nielsen’s only viable option,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “Marketers are deep into planning and activation discussions with their multiscreen TV ad sales partners, the last thing advertisers need in 2020 is an unnecessary step backwards from a currency provider, the TV industry’s solidarity in always pushing for innovation made sure that potential delay was eliminated quickly.”

Here is the text of Kenny's letter:

At Nielsen, we take pride in providing the market with transparent metrics that our clients can use to transact with confidence.

Earlier this week we communicated a delay to our plans to integrate out-of-home audiences into the National TV currency this fall. Our concern was about consumer behavior, and not the Nielsen methodology. While out-of-home audiences have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, our methodology is strong and the data is reflective of consumer behavior.

That said, after speaking with many clients and learning more about your specific agreements for the upcoming season, it became clear that we had misunderstood the extent to which upfront deals have already been agreed to using out-of-home metrics. Given the circumstances, we recognize that a delay would cause greater disruption to the industry than maintaining our original plan. I also believe Nielsen needs to deliver on our promises, so that you can transact with trust and confidence. Therefore, Nielsen will move forward with the integration of out-of-home TV viewing into the National TV currency measurement starting in September 2020, as originally planned. We will also provide additional data on out-of-home behavior to help you interpret behavior shifts during the pandemic.

We regret any disruption we may have caused you, your customers, and the market this week. Going forward, we are committed to ensuring a more complete, inclusive, and transparent process as the currency evolves with changing consumer behavior.

Respectfully yours,

David Kenny CEO and Chief Diversity Officer Nielsen

Under pressure from clients who felt blindsided, Nielsen will include out-of-home viewing in its national ratings starting in September as originally planned.

On Wedneday, Nielsen told clients that it was delaying adding out-of-home viewing to ratings because of complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We regret any disruption we may have caused you, your customers, and the market this week. Going forward, we are committed to ensuring a more complete, inclusive, and transparent process as the currency evolves with changing consumer behavior,” Nielsen CEO David Kenny said in a letter sent to clients late Friday.

TV networks had been counting on selling those extra viewers to advertisers--especially in sports programming--and complained. 

ViacomCBS called the Wednesday decision “unacceptable and unjustifiable” and VAB, the industry trade group representing the biggest TV ad sellers, sent an "urgent" letter to Kenny imploring the measurement company to integrate the out-of-home data "without delay."

In his letter Friday, Kenny said that “after speaking with many clients and learning more about your specific agreements for the upcoming season, it became clear that we had misunderstood the extent to which upfront deals have already been agreed to using out-of-home metrics. Given the circumstances, we recognize that a delay would cause greater disruption to the industry than maintaining our original plan.”

The VAB expressed relief that Nielsen moves quickly to resolve what could have been a problem in the middle of an already chaotic upfront market.  

“While gratified by the speed with which Nielsen reversed their postponement plan, it was crystal clear that a quick reversal was Nielsen’s only viable option,”  said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham. “Marketers are deep into planning and activation discussions with their multiscreen TV ad sales partners, the last thing advertisers need in 2020 is an unnecessary step backwards from a currency provider, the TV industry’s solidarity in always pushing for innovation made sure that potential delay was eliminated quickly.”  

Here is the text of Kenny's letter:

At Nielsen, we take pride in providing the market with transparent metrics that our clients can use to transact with confidence. 

Earlier this week we communicated a delay to our plans to integrate out-of-home audiences into the National TV currency this fall. Our concern was about consumer behavior, and not the Nielsen methodology. While out-of-home audiences have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, our methodology is strong and the data is reflective of consumer behavior. 

That said, after speaking with many clients and learning more about your specific agreements for the upcoming season, it became clear that we had misunderstood the extent to which upfront deals have already been agreed to using out-of-home metrics. Given the circumstances, we recognize that a delay would cause greater disruption to the industry than maintaining our original plan. I also believe Nielsen needs to deliver on our promises, so that you can transact with trust and confidence. Therefore, Nielsen will move forward with the integration of out-of-home TV viewing into the National TV currency measurement starting in September 2020, as originally planned. We will also provide additional data on out-of-home behavior to help you interpret behavior shifts during the pandemic.  

We regret any disruption we may have caused you, your customers, and the market this week. Going forward, we are committed to ensuring a more complete, inclusive, and transparent process as the currency evolves with changing consumer behavior. 

Respectfully yours,  

David Kenny CEO and Chief Diversity Officer Nielsen

VAB, the trade group representing the biggest TV ad sales organizations, is calling on Nielsen to reverse its plan to delay the integration of out-of-home viewing into its national ratings.

In an "urgent" letter to Nielsen CEO David Kenny, VAB CEO Sean Cunningham said the VAB board disagreed with both the substance and the handling of the decision.

“We believe it puts all parties in the TV marketplace at an unnecessary disadvantage, and as one of your largest sets of Nielsen customers, we implore you to return to plan: with OOH viewing data fully integrated into a single stream of currency data without postponement or delay,” Cunningham’s letter said.

Nielsen began informing clients of the postponement due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic Wednesday. The decision comes amid a particular chaotic upfront selling season for the TV industry amid a pandemic that disrupted many advertisers’ ad spending plans.

The move particularly hurts TV networks with sports programming, especially the NFL, which gets big chunks of viewing in bars, health clubs and hotels.

ViacomCBS, which airs NFL games, called Nielsen’s move “unacceptable and unjustifiable” in a statement late Thursday.

The VAB letter laid out three key objections to Nielsen’s decision to postpone adding out-of-home viewing to its ratings.

The first was that Nielsen’s out-of-home data has been stable, even though out-of-home viewing has been down during the pandemic. “Being ‘down’ cannot preclude it from integration into a single stream currency product . . . we do not see a methodological driver that could justify a ‘postponement,’ nor a need to change methodology.”

The VAB’s second point was that there was a contradiction between Nielsen’s decision not to include out-of-home data in its ratings, but to continue to make that out-of-home data available to the market as a currency on which advertising sales can be transacted. “You can’t have it both ways,” the letter said. “This is the type of demonstrated confusion and uncertainty that can have the effect of significantly eroding confidence in Nielsen as a third-party currency provider.”

The final point said that the decision was “an extremely bad surprise” for the top ad sales execs who make up the VAB board. “‘Blindsiding’ is perhaps the politest way of characterizing how under-communicated and contradictory” the decision was. The VAB noted that all of its members are in weekly conversations with Nielsen about topics including out of home viewing data and were stunned by the announcement.

“While this letter quickly conveys to you the need for Nielsen to REVERSE this morning’s announced ‘postponement’ on behalf of my Board leaders, you will certainly be hearing from them individually--I urge you to listen to your customers and have Nielsen act as a solution-provider in our marketplace and not an impediment,” Cunningham said.

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Longtime Video Advertising Bureau executive Cynthia Perkins-Roberts has passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer, according to the organization.

Perkins-Roberts, 54, worked at the VAB for 25 years, eventually ascending to the role of vice president of multicultural marketing and sales development, where she initiated multicultural marketing connections among networks, agencies, advertisers and research companies, according to Sean Cunningham, VAB president and CEO.

“What made Cynthia so highly effective in marketing and advertising was her ability to thrive in the art of people immersion,” said Cunningham.

Below is a tribute to Perkins-Roberts from Cunningham posted on the VAB website:

On New Year’s Day, we lost a leading visionary and one of the best in the industry when the VAB’s Cynthia Perkins-Roberts passed away.

Cynthia knew only one way to do anything of importance – she put her full heart and soul into it all.

There was great power in the depth of Cynthia’s unwavering commitment, whether it was to her family, at her church, with her trove of cherished friends, or in all the advances she drove in multicultural marketing. You always knew Cynthia would never settle for just “a job well done,” because nothing was ever done with Cynthia until something remarkable was achieved.

Cynthia was a 25-year veteran of the VAB rising to VP, Multicultural Marketing and Sales Development. What made Cynthia so highly effective in marketing and advertising was her ability to thrive in the art of people immersion. For every one of the multitudes of her professional accomplishments - including many “firsts” and victories - there was always a wonderful backstory of connecting people and personalities to push through to a new high-water mark. Motivating people to break through barriers was always the fuel, and few people I’ve met could fuel a relationship like Cynthia did – every time.

Throughout her career, she was recognized and embraced by numerous industry organizations including being named one of CableWorld magazine’s “Most Influential Minorities in Cable,” being appointed to the Nielsen African-American Television Advisory Council and serving as Co-chair of the Advertising Women of New York’s (AWNY) Multicultural Alliance, as well as her many contributions to the ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM).

Her drive to initiate multicultural marketing connections among networks, agencies, advertisers and research companies led to the publishing of a wealth of diversity media resources and invaluable information for industry professionals. Cynthia was also a sought-after speaker for industry events and frequent media spokesperson.

Most importantly, you could learn about what drove Cynthia Perkins-Robert’sindomitable spiritwithin the first five minutes of meeting her: adoring husband Jeffery and her two college-aged daughters Jessica and Lexi, who were her sun, her moon and her stars.

At the VAB we’ve barely begun to calculate how much we’ll miss Cynthia, but we’ll now count every new “first” in multicultural marketing as another win undoubtedly fueled by Cynthia Perkins-Roberts and her endless influence.

Media agency executives and marketers underestimate how much time Americans spend watching TV because their own media habits are different, according to a new study by the Video Advertising Bureau.

That might lead them to allocate ad dollars based on their own experience, which could cost the TV industry, the VAB said.

Media buyers skew male, and trend younger, more affluent, urban, career-oriented and tech-centric than the general population, the survey found. They also spend more time on the Internet and emerging platforms.

“The advertising business is running so fast to keep up with digital platforms that we’re outpacing the market, and creating an echo chamber that warps our perspective on the people we’re trying to reach,” said Danielle DeLauro, VAB senior vice president for strategic sales insights.

“Go to any advertising conference today, and you hear about what’s next at the expense of what’s now, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that no one is watching live TV and everyone is on social media all day," DeLauro added. "The problem with this myopic focus on what’s new and next is that marketers need to sell products today, and that requires a precise understanding of how people are actually using media now.”

Advertising professionals watch TV an average of less than two hours a day but think they watch as much TV as the average American. In fact, the average American adult averages more than 4½ hours of TV per day.

VAB compared syndicated data on America’s media habits with the results of a custom study it commissioned by Research Now. From Feb. 6-16, 250 advertising executives — 71% agencies and 29% advertisers, with agency people evenly split between traditional and digital media buyers — were asked about their job, lifestyle and media habits along with their perceptions of how the American public compares.

Average adults also spend half the time advertising people think they spend watching video on a computer and a seventh of the time estimated watching on a mobile device. The survey found 61% of ad people watch 30 minutes or more per day on the computer, and 70% think the public does too. According to research, Americans average just 12 minutes per day. A majority of ad people watch 30 minutes a day on mobile, and 73% think the public does as well, but Americans average only 4 minutes per day of mobile video viewing.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

With Election Day drawing near (Nov. 1), the Video Advertising Bureau has released a report that shows undecided voters in the last days before going to the polls are influenced more by TV than by other media.

Televised debates and political TV shows were cited by 65% of respondents as their primary sources for political information about national races, according to a VAB survey of undecided voters.

More than 40% of undecided voters have gone online to research a candidate or issue after seeing a political ad on TV, the survey found. Only 21% said they had researched a candidate after viewing an ad on social media, and 17% said they had followed up after someone they knew “liked” a candidate on Facebook.

More than three quarters of respondents (79%) said TV was the medium where a political ad was most likely to get their attention, in both national and local races.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

RELATED:Heads Up! Attentiveness Is the New TV Metric [subscription required]

Comparing traditional TV with digital has long been tricky. While data about digital seems more direct and accurate, measurements like unique users and minutes viewed are like oranges compared to TV's audience of apples.

While measurement companies Nielsen and comScore compete to construct a cross-platform ratings regime that works, the Video Advertising Bureau, which represents broadcast and cable TV, has come up with a formula it says provides an accurate snapshot of the number of people using TV versus those using Facebook.

The VAB’s solution is to measure average audience per minute, which takes into account reach, frequency and time spent, the factors that are important to advertisers. The VAB multiplies unique audience by average minutes viewed per visitor to get total minutes viewed. Then it divides by total minutes in the time period to get an average audience.

Using this formula, the VAB said, TV’s audience in any minute averages 45.4 million people, topping 12.7 million for smartphones and 9 million for PCs.

Television accounts for 95% of video consumption among adults and 88% among those pesky, cord-cutting millennials. TV as a whole beats Facebook 7 to 1, Pandora 15 to 1 and YouTube 15 to 1 among adults, according to the VAB.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Broadcasters and cable networks will team to form a new organization focused on maximizing advertising potential through quality content on traditional TV outlets.

The newly named Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) -- formerly the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau -- will look to unite broadcast and cable networks as well as MPVDs in an effort to “raise the bar” on research, data and analytics as well as expand the market for advertising in “world class” video content, according to Sean Cunningham, who will serve as president and CEO of the VAB.

“At this point there’s a need to get everyone together because the stats are overwhelming for consumption, and the needs are significant in terms of better data and more insights,” Cunningham told Multichannel News. “We hope to have to get insights around consumer behavior and analytics about how to best quantify the selling power of this instrument.”

Joe Abruzzese, president of advertising sales at Discovery Networks and inaugural co-chair of the VAB, added that while the industry is changing rapidly, the one constant is the power of television to reach consumers with advertiser messaging. “By broadcasters, cable networks and distributors coming together in this unprecedented way, VAB members will share expertise and insights, put forward original research and push toward a common goal of elevating television’s leadership in driving product sales and brand affinity for clients,” Abruzzese said.

The VAB will include 110 networks and the 11 largest MVPDs that, Cunningham said, produce and sell the overwhelming majority of video content and command the vast majority share of viewer attention. He added the newly formed association will combine the biggest broadcast networks, cable networks and distributors to advance the power of video advertising.

“I think this move just reinforces the fact that the membership base is very eager to work with marketers and help them make decisions and make sure they have the right information to make those decisions,” said Joan Gillman, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Time Warner Cable Media and inaugural Co-Chair of the VAB. “It’s a really effective move on the part of the CAB/VAB.”

Cunningham also said the group has been holistically looking at all ad-supported TV since January in preparation for its transition.

“There is no equivalent to this either through a consumer connection or the ability to sell,” Cunningham said.

While the organization will focus on broadcast and cable networks and programming, Cunningham didn’t rule out possibly working with digital players, including ad-supported over-the-top services in the future.

“In this environment you have to be open to a lot of possibilities including any premium content … our doors and minds are open,” he said.