When TV Ratings Finally Collide With Streaming

A recent decision by a little-known industry oversight group could end up having a sizable impact on TV ratings and the ad business that relies on them.

The Media Rating Council, which accredits audience measurement models from such companies as Nielsen, Comscore and VideoAmp, gave a thumbs-up to Nielsen’s plan to incorporate first-party data from streaming outlets into its national TV ratings panel. The “panel plus big data” measurement has the potential — at least for live events — to show that a noticeably higher number of people are watching a given program than the panel-only measure.

Related Stories

The sample size for panel plus big data measurement, it needs to be noted, is exceedingly small at the moment: The only Nielsen client using the new measurement so far is Amazon, and then only for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football telecasts.

...

Keep reading this article on Hollywood Reporter.