The Media Rating Council has accredited the methodology Nielsen began using last year in 19 set meter markets as part of the upgrade of its local ratings service.
Nielsen said the MRC also accredited its National People Meter service, making it the only measurement company to get that seal of approval for both local and national ratings.
“We congratulate Nielsen on achieving this important milestone in the transformation of its TV measurement,” said George Ivie, executive director and CEO of the MRC. “Even more importantly, we look forward to working with Nielsen in its ongoing work to continuously improve the quality of these and other services in its measurement product portfolio, and to provide the transparency into these services that is required by the industry to have the confidence it needs in how well its advertising and programming investments are measured.”
As part of its upgrade of local ratings, Nielsen added Portable People Meters to the way it calculates how many people tune in to shows. Nielsen said the Portable People Meters bring more size and stability to its panels. The MRC approval validates that approach to measuring local viewership.
Nielsen competes with Comscore for local TV station ratings business.
The accreditation also includes Nielsen Viewer Assignment methodology, which it uses to make household and person levels estimates.
“We are excited about the future of our measurement services for our clients and the industry as a whole,” said Amilcar Perez, executive VP, National Media Clients, at Nielsen.
“The MRC accreditation process is extensive, encompassing all significant aspects of a measurement service's design and execution,” said Perez. “This assignation reaffirms Nielsen’s commitment to providing clients with trusted metrics via our best-in-class data science, technology and methodology that serve as the backbone of our measurement standards and solutions. At the same time, participation in the MRC process demonstrates Nielsen's fidelity to transparency and recognition of the importance of independent, third-party validation.”
The Media Rating Council establishes industry standards for valid, reliable and effective media audience measurement research. MRC accreditation signals to the marketplace that a product/service meets the MRC minimum standards for the production and delivery of audience ratings.
