Nielson Admits Ratings information

[ddillard 2]

NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH LATE FRIDAY

sent a notice to clients informing them that it has incorrectly reported digital cable TV ratings for most of the 2004-05 television season. The announcement, which was inexplicably sent out after the close of business on Friday, was described by

one Nielsen customer as "horrendous."The SNAFU, which affected Nielsen's so-called MarketBreaks service--a Web-based system used by clients to analyze various TV ratings--mistakenly assigned data for "digital cable with pay" market

breaks to "digital cable without pay" market breaks, and vice versa from Nov. 1, 2004 through Feb. 2, 2005.

 

Nielsen said the glitch impacted ratings for both breaks, as well as aggregate

ratings for digital cable when they are combined.While Nielsen did not characterize the overall magnitude of the error, it said: "The impact varies greatly in size and direction from program to program and half-hour to half-hour," and advised clients not to use "any digital cable data that they may have run in MarketBreaks for these dates."

 

Also unclear was the potential financial impact of the mistake. The precise

magnitude of the impact on ad deals may never be known, says one client, noting

that it would depend on "the number and size of the deals that have been made to

date with these data."

 

However, the impact for new cable networks could be significant, because the

data are integral to the strategic planning and capital decisions of digital cable

networks. "In addition to the costs to advertisers and agencies that need to

considered, one also needs to ask what will be the cost to investment firms and

the other businesses that relied on these data for critical business analyses and

judgments," says the irate Nielsen customer.

Nielsen said it is currently in the process of re-running viewing data for digital

cable, and that it would make corrections of the data in weekly intervals,

beginning with the most recent week and "working backward in time."

[Angela 1]

O basically UPN/Paramount canncelled ENT cause of neilsons crap and now they say they were wrong, anyone see a conspiriracy brewing???

[Theunicornhunter 2]

Does anyone know what "digital cable with pay" and "digital cable without pay" means or if it in anyway affects UPN's ratings? UPN is a free network and some people without cable watch it and in some places even with cable you might not live in a UPN coverage area. And some people have cable without opting for the digital cable option.

[Takara_Soong 4]

I'm afraid this may not help us as it apparently isn't the ratings themselves that were screwed up but other information. I found this at broadcastingcable.com:

 

Due to what Nielsen Media Research is describing as human error, the ratings company inadvertently gave out some wrong information on digital-cable viewers for one of its qualitative reports to advertiser clients.

 

The so-called MarketBreaks reports for two demos, which were incorrect from November to January, provide lifestyle information, including income, education, car ownership, cable and satellite viewership, etc.

 

The MarketBreaks are a supplement to the daily ratings, which Nielsen says were not affected.

 

"The impact varies greatly in size and direction from program to program and half-hour to half-hour," Nielsen told clients.  "[You] should not use any Digital Cable data that they may have run in MarketBreaks for these dates [Nov. 1, 2004-Feb.2, 2005]."

 

Nielsen spokeswoman Karen Gyimesi said Nielsen would get a schedule for releasing the corrected numbers to clients by the middle of next week.

 

Critics of Nielsen grabbed onto the news to suggest some systemic failure at the ratings company, but Gyimesi called it a mistake that the company was apologizing for and taking the necessary steps to avoid a repeat.

[TC1 0]

It still seems like we'e not hearing the full story on this.

[BigHero6 0]

I would be curious to see how digital satellite users fit into this. There are some areas where you cannot get UPN on cable, but it was available on Directv.

[Capt_Picard 0]

It sounds like they are trying to down play the problem. If the ratings is the reason Enterprise is getting kick then this alone would mean for UPN to rethink. But... I think UPN might be wanting to get rid of itself so that all of Vicoms money goes into CBS... and they need it. And that really sucks.

[MrPsychic 1]

All I know is that the Nielson Ratings give you a dollar to fill out the form... I just took the dollar Don't worry, it was at like season 5 of Voyager, so one vote wouldn't have mattered.