Losing Media Rating Council accreditation and getting bad press about its flaws and competitive threats hasn’t hurt Nielsen one bit financially, based on results released Thursday.

Nielsen executives reported that third-quarter revenue beat forecasts, agency and media contract renewals are strong and progress on next-generation TV measurement system Nielsen One is on track for a late 2022 rollout. The company raised full-year revenue and earnings guidance.

“We’re not getting distracted by external noise,” CEO David Kenny said on an earnings call.

While acknowledging missteps for Nielsen’s TV ratings panel due to pandemic workarounds, he said panel size is already back up to its pre-pandemic size of around 40,000 households (from a low close to 30,000) and set to reach its goal of 41,600 homes by early next year.

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Nielsen reported quarterly revenue up 5.5% to $882 million. The gain was an even stronger 6.6% gain excluding currency, acquisition and divestiture effects. Audience measurement – the primary area where Nielsen’s accreditation troubles would have an impact – rose 4.4% organically, while outcomes and content measurement revenue soared 12.5% organically. Net income from continuing operations rose 18.2% to $117 million.

Kenny and other Nielsen executives delved deeper than usual with analysts on measurement issues, arguing that the “noise” about emerging competition was just that.

Potential competitors “claim that they can use individual-level information from other big data sources, but big data has flaws and biases,” Kenny said. “It lacks rich details about who the people are and under-represent diverse populations and certain age groups.”

Nielsen One to roll out in stages

While Nielsen One will rely on similar household device “big data” sets, it also will be informed by the TV household panel and People Meters, including a new generation of wearable meters to track on-the-go media consumption that Nielsen is rolling out, Kenny said.

Media companies and competitors have announced deal currency alternatives to Nielsen, Kenny said, but ultimately it’s up to marketers and agencies to agree to use them, Kenny said. Big marketers such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Anheuser-Busch have noted that they want holistic independent measurement like what Nielsen provides, he said.

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Kenny added that Nielsen is “deeply embedded in the media ecosystem across buying platforms, such as Mediaocean, and with advertisers and publishers, who want to transact on a common fact base.” He didn’t mention that Mediaocean also works with data from competitors, such as Comscore and VideoAmp, and was an early-round investor in the latter.

Nielsen One — which aims to provide a single deal currency across linear and all forms of streaming TV – is on track to be fully operational by the fourth quarter of next year and will roll out in stages so clients will “have the legacy system to compare,” Kenny said. “But our hope is to move everything to the new system and not maintain an old and the new version.”

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Kenny also described Nielsen’s relationship with NBCUniversal as strong, despite the media company’s well-publicized criticism of Nielsen and its RFP to evaluate almost every possible competitor, led by Kelly Abcarian, former Nielsen executive and now executive VP of measurement and impact at NBCUniversal.

“NBC, first of all, is a good client and we have a good relationship,” Kenny said. “There are a number of folks I respect there, starting with their CEO, who I consider a friend, and quite frankly I think their research people are really solid, and we learn from each other.” He added: “Bringing together everybody across optimization, analytics and measurement is a good thing, so we were glad to participate.”