OK, here's the update on the Nielsen commercial ratings debacle that's coming after the research company held a meeting with agencies and networks to determine the best way to go forward:
- The idea of counting only "live" data is dead. All parties seemed to agree that "live plus two or three days" is going to offer the best set of data that both buyers and sellers can live with. This gives buyers a small enough window that their finely-timed campaigns can still be gaged for effectiveness but a big enough window that network sellers don't wind up throwing themselves out a window.
- Nielsen will provide raw data to both agencies and networks so that they can figure out for themselves what information to use to create minute-by-minute ratings. This seems like a bit of Nielsen saying "Look, the two of you fight it out and we'll provide the weaponry" but maybe that's just me. Unfortunately this will start just a few weeks before the next upfronts so that probably won't be enough time for a common currency to be agreed upon. That has some buyers honked off.
- 40 percent of TV viewing is now being done via some sort of time-shifting, a much larger percentage then had previously been thought. That means that if the networks had once again caved and accepted rates based only on "live" data they would have lost about $600 million in 2007, which is getting up towards some serious money.
