Nielsen has gotten Media Rating Council accreditation for its Big Data + Panel measurement, paving the way for trading on it as a TV currency, though it’s not yet clear how widely adopted it will be for the coming TV upfronts.

The MRC approval covers data from 45 million cable and smart TV households incorporated with Nielsen’s national panel of more than 41,000 households. The MRC previously approved the incorporation of first-party streaming data from Amazon Prime and Netflix into Nielsen’s national measurement for NFL games.

Nielsen began offering data from its Big Data + Panel service for trading as recently as 2023. Now, accreditation from the industry’s measurement quality arbiter gives it an added boost and is leading Nielsen to endorse Big Data + Panel for use as a currency.

‘A landmark moment for TV ratings’

This is the first time the MRC has accredited a hybrid panel and big-data product inclusive of persons-level estimates, George Ivie, MRC’s CEO, said in a statement. The MRC last year approved use of Comscore’s big data offering for household-level, but not person-level, estimates. VideoAmp is in talks to begin an MRC accreditation audit, which could start this spring.

“The accreditation of Nielsen's Big Data + Panel is a landmark moment for TV ratings, as it will forever change audience measurement,” said Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s CEO, in a statement. “I believe Big Data + Panel gives the industry the most accurate measurement in the history of TV.”

Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement produces numbers generally higher and in some cases substantially different than panel-only. On average, total audiences were being measured about 4%-5% larger with big data than with panel only, Pete Doe, Nielsen’s chief data officer, said in a press briefing last year.

Incorporating big data also dramatically reduces the number of zero-rated segments in a fragmented TV market where panel data often doesn’t capture any viewership at all.

Big data also opens the door for more trading on advanced audiences beyond the demographics on which the TV market still largely trades, and an area where Nielsen has faced more competition from rivals than in traditional demo-denominated deals. The Nielsen One product with the company’s full range of advanced audience and outcomes measurement isn’t covered by the MRC accreditation announced today. Nielsen is preparing to seek accreditation for Nielsen One, it said.

‘We need market alignment’

Nielsen has provided agencies and advertisers with historical or impact data allowing comparison of panel only to Big Data + Panel back to January 2023, according to a spokesman. But it remains to be seen how quickly agencies will adapt to develop plans and buys based on the new data set. It’s unclear just how widely the new MRC accreditation could shift the market toward big data trading this year.

“I’m not there yet,” said a buyer from one independent agency, who is doing some evaluation this month and holding it open as an option.

For larger holding-company agencies, shifting to a new trading currency is a bigger lift, requiring system and programming changes and the use of metrics that can be hard to reconcile with historical data that feeds client marketing mix models.An executive with one agency outlined the complexities that will drive the decision whether to switch to Nielsen’s big data product.

“We are operationally prepared to support Nielsen Big Data, but to transact, we need market alignment” on key components, the executive said. One is whether both buy and sell-side systems and workflows will support currency conversion. The second is whether both sides agree on the currency conversions between Nielsen panel and Big Data + Panel. And the third is whether sellers are willing to convert.

“It’s not a matter of being ready to flip a switch,” the executive said. “There is work to be done in the next several months to ensure alignment on these elements before we can say we’re all ready.”

The two years of data Nielsen is providing now is definitely better than the one year available before, the executive said, especially since that year of data had been affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike, making it hard to use as a basis of comparison.

Nielsen originally proposed using Big Data + Panel data as currency in 2023, before it was MRC accredited but at a time when its panel accreditation had been suspended. But some agencies at the time balked at shifting to the new currency, and when the MRC restored Nielsen accreditation in April 2023, the company shifted gears to endorse the use of the panel data as currency instead, while keeping the option of trading on big data open for those who opted for it.

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Nielsen uses its household panel as the “source of truth” behind Big Data + Panel. Under the methodology described by Doe and other Nielsen executives, Nielsen applies data from cable set-top boxes with return-path data only to panel homes that have such boxes, and smart TV data only to panel homes that have smart TVs.

“By using panels as a source of truth, Nielsen developed robust methods to calibrate big data, assign viewing to the right individuals, and project audience estimates to the entire TV population, not just those in the big data dataset,” Nielsen shared in a statement.

Nielsen’s approach also tends to produce numbers closer to what its panel has historically shown than what rival measurement providers such as VideoAmp, Comscore or iSpot.tv show, according to people who’ve reviewed data from multiple providers.

Most of the TV market likely will trade on Nielsen data, be it panel or Big Data + Panel, in the coming upfront, as it has for decades. However, Nielsen remains in a contract standoff with Paramount, which is currently trading primarily on data from rival VideoAmp, translating last year’s upfront commitments written on Nielsen data into VideoAmp measurement. That’s created tensions with some agency buyers, and it remains to be seen if Paramount and Nielsen will come to terms in time for the coming upfront season.