Nielsen gets shot in the arm from MRC’s livestream accreditation

Dive Brief:

The Media Rating Council has granted accreditation to Nielsen’s approach to integrating first-party livestreaming data into its national television panel rating services, according to a release from Nielsen. The approval makes Nielsen the first accredited livestreaming rating service with “persons-level granularity,” according to the release.
Though previously unaccredited, Nielsen has been using first-party data provided by Amazon Prime to measure the streamer’s NFL “Thursday Night Football” coverage. With the official accreditation, other ad-supported streamers may follow suit.
The approval is a big shot in the arm for Nielsen, which at one point had lost crucial accreditations. Though the company has won those accreditations back, the competition for rating currency providers has increased.

Dive Insight:

After decades of being the only game in town, Nielsen needs to fight for its place in the new media landscape, and the company hopes this new development will help put it back on top. Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao was quick to point out what the MRC’s approval means as a broader testament to the business.

“With time-tested methodologies like our accredited persons panel and precise new solutions for the streaming era, we believe Nielsen is right where the industry needs us to be — at the convergence of all the ways people watch content,” Rao said in the release about the MRC approval.

However, the advertising measurement space has been evolving, meaning Nielsen faces more competition than it has in the past. Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot have all developed their own rating currency platforms, and a new industry group, the Joint Industry Committee (founded by TV programmers, media agencies, streaming platforms and other players), has emerged to enable new measurement solutions.

As a result, many advertisers are relying on multiple rating currency platforms to ensure they are getting the most complete picture they can. Nearly half of all advertisers are very familiar with the move to alternative currencies and 60% have used such currencies in the past 12 months, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ recent TV Measurement Report. Two-thirds of advertisers believe the future will include a multi-currency landscape, though they would like to see the set of currencies limited to no more than five.

Still, Nielsen remains the leading TV currency, and 80% of advertisers approve of the company’s use of a platform’s first-party data in its live programming ratings, which means others are likely to follow suit. Indeed, VideoAmp, iSpot and Comscore have all incorporated first-party streaming data from networks into their measurement, but are not yet accredited, according to AdAge.