Nielsen Being Slammed For Changing Major Market Ratings

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: 4As Slams Nielsen For Local TV Ratings Change : by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 9:24 PM : Piling on criticism over a major change in local TV ratings measurement, the 4A's Media Policy Committee has penned a strongly worded letter to The Nielsen Company. : The letter that Marc Goldstein -- president and CEO of GroupM North America and Chair of the American Association of Advertising Agencies' media policy committee -- sent to Nielsen echoed major media agency executives' fury over the media ratings service's decision to eliminate live-only ratings in major local TV markets. : "Your total disregard for the expressed concerns of local broadcast media buyers, coupled with your adamant refusal to recognize our point of view is totally unacceptable," writes Goldstein in a letter sent on Wednesday to Susan Whiting, vice chair of The Nielsen Company. : "Rather than maintain Nielsen's traditional role as an "honest broker" of data and information, you have instead chosen to insert yourselves in the buy/sell process and in so doing, you have sacrificed your credibility." : GroupM executives have already expressed major problems with eliminating the live-only ratings data with live-plus-same-day ratings -- the biggest is that it could instantly increase local TV ratings by 13%. : GroupM says it has long-term contracts with TV stations that would be affected. GroupM represents about one-third of all local TV media dollars for U.S. TV stations. The new system is supposed to go into effect in January. : To many executives, the move will be an immediate boon to struggling TV stations that have seen local TV ad revenue plummeting some 30% to 40% over the past year. : More recently, others have joined the chorus against Nielsen, such as John Muszynski, chief investment officer of SMGX, part of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group. Starcom also represents a hefty chunk of overall local TV advertising spending. : Nielsen's response: it reviewed the possible changeover beforehand with all its clients -- TV sellers and buyers alike. : But recently, it has come to light that the TV stations' main advertising lobbying group -- the Television Bureau of Advertising -- may have had a major part in pushing for the switch. : Media agencies are not opposed to adding the live-plus-same-day stream -- just not eliminating the live-only stream. Nielsen says TV stations have capacity issues in handling additional TV audience data. : Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer at GroupM, previously told MediaDailyNews that the media agency group has been discussing possible legal action against Nielsen. : : (MediaPost)

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