Earlier this week, famed ratings measuring system Nielsen put its own Media Ratings Council accreditation on hiatus amid a dispute with the broadcasting industry.
The dispute ties to Nielsen’s alleged undercounting of viewers in recent years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as consumer viewing habits are rapidly evolving. Without that MRC accreditation, Nielsen’s ratings have no common standard for evaluation.
The MRC, which is a government-founded, industry-supported organization that monitors media stakeholders, has ripped Nielsen a new one. They cite the company’s “deep-rooted, ongoing performance issues” in a statement.
Streaming has evolved into being central to traditional media, but Nielsen’s numbers still carry a lot of weight – especially among those calculating tens of billions of dollars of annual advertising spending.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav says: “It’s just massively disappointing that Nielsen can’t get its act together… We have lost money. Everyone has lost money. You’re dealing with a very antiquated delivery system.”
Source: Variety
