Responding to an op-ed column from Nielsen on Broadcasting+Cable’s website defending the use of panels as part of its audience measurement system, competitor Comscore is firing back.
In a column titled “Setting the Record Straight About Modern Media Measurement,” Dr. Michael Vinson, Comscore’s chief research officer, labels Nielsen an “antiquated monopoly” and says that modern techniques, including machine learning and big data, work if you have experience using them.
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Vinson notes that during the pandemic, Nielsen’s panels failed to accurately measure viewing, while Comscore’s system remained reliable.
In her column, Nielsen’s senior VP of data science Molly Poppie said Comscore’s decision to stop using portable people meter data will lead to less accurate information about who is watching what.
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“With Nielsen’s limited experience in this new world, it is misguided for them to discount Comscore’s more than a decade of experience and knowledge in creating stable, reliable, and predictable local and national measurement currencies using census-scale data,” is Vinson’s rebuttal.
“It’s clear we are in a new era of media. To meet the needs of what the industry needs now, not years from now, Comscore has taken a measurement approach with the imperatives of reliability, inclusion, and stability in mind. We are proud to have built what we believe is the best methodology in the market. We have enormous scale — there is one Comscore-measured home in every three U.S. TV homes — and a data-driven/census-like approach that’s impossible to achieve with small samples,” Vinson concludes.
