There are many arguments over sporting events’ television ratings and viewership, often between rival network PR executives pointing out particular data advantageous to their broadcasts. But the bigger question still is about what data to use. And that spiraled into a massive fight last year around Nielsen measurement of Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football, but it’s now led to a resolution that could wind up impacting many more streamers.
The current news is that the Media Rating Council not only renewed Nielsen’s primary panel accreditation, but also approved the way Nielsen has been integrating first-party data (so, data from the streaming companies themselves on how many subscribers are streaming their broadcasts) into streaming measurement.
That’s significant, as the MRC is a 1963-established non-profit association led by representatives from media companies, advertisers, and more. And it’s the critical group for determining what measurement marks advertisers, media companies, and ratings services can agree upon.
At the moment, the first-party data is only being used with Amazon and Thursday Night Football on Prime. And it only currently appears in the Big Data+Panel numbers, which are released separately (and discussed separately) from the normal Nielsen panel numbers. (And AA has learned those panel numbers will continue to be released for TNF as well, at least through the end of this season.)
But the integration of first-party data could wind up becoming a wider standard following this MRC move, with a Nielsen spokesperson telling AA they’re in talks with multiple clients on incorporating this kind of data going forward. Here’s more from a release on the MRC accreditation:
The Media Rating Council (MRC) today approved the integration of first-party live streaming data into Nielsen’s accredited National Television service and renewed accreditation for Nielsen’s National Panel measurement. This vote of confidence in Nielsen’s first-party data integration makes Nielsen the first accredited live-streaming solution with persons-level granularity. The approval of first-party data integration bolsters all of streaming measurement moving forward.
“We’re thrilled and humbled to earn first-party approval from the MRC. It’s a great affirmation of Nielsen’s ability to innovate at the speed of the market, while doing so in a safe and verified way,” said Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao. “With time-tested methodologies like our accredited persons panel and precise new solutions for the streaming era, we believe Nielsen is right where the industry needs us to be—at the convergence of all the ways people watch content. This will give the industry a true view of linear and streaming viewing like never before.”
“We congratulate Nielsen on the renewal of accreditation of its National Television Panel Measurement and on receiving approval to integrate its first-party streaming data into the panel measurement,” said George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director of the MRC. “This was a significant effort and we appreciate Nielsen’s ongoing commitment to the MRC accreditation process.”
The history here is important, and it dates back to Amazon getting exclusive Thursday Night Football rights beginning in 2022. (Prime Video had previously been TNF’s streaming home since 2017, but Fox had broadcast it over-the-air.) In the 2022 season (which was a faster shift than most were expecting, as the initial Fox contract ran through that season, but they bowed out a year early), Nielsen released just standard panel measurements for TNF, but Amazon consistently released significantly higher internal numbers.
Of course, no ratings numbers are 100 percent accurate for exactly how many people are watching. And from a sports business perspective, it’s not actually the viewership numbers that matter. Those numbers are nice to talk about for week-over-week and year-over-year comparisons and other historical trends, but what really matters is what advertisers are willing to pay for particular commercial slots.
The price per slot is related to viewership (but often on a much larger scale than just a few games), but not always exactly linearly correlated. For example, Super Bowl ad prices have sometimes been well above what you’d expect on an expected per-viewer basis, with that being more about limited supply and high demand. So the key thing here wasn’t just Amazon wanting to say a lot of people were watching (although that was part of it from a PR standpoint), but them convincing advertisers a lot of people (and more than the Nielsen panel-alone data showed) were watching. But the advertisers wanted more than just Amazon’s word as proof.
That’s where the Nielsen Big Data+panel approach came in. In 2023, they drew up a framework to incorporate first-party streaming data, and offered it to various clients. But Amazon was the only one to take them up on it at that point.
That led to significant criticism from other networks (especially other NFL broadcasters) and the Video Advertising Bureau trade group, including then-CBS Sports chair Sean McManus saying “Anything that is not impartial and unbiased is unacceptable to us” and VAB CEO and president Sean Cunningham saying “These are areas that an objective third-party measurement/currency provider should not be creating advantages in for one of its clients, while simultaneously (and knowingly) creating competitive disadvantages for a group of its other clients.“
Nielsen pushed back on that, saying they’d outlined clear methodology here and offered it to others. And Rao wrote at that time that “We believe that our principled, transparent and open approach to integrating first-party data requires all publishers to play by the same rules and will accelerate the industry’s move toward a streaming-first world.”
The MRC approval of this approach is certainly a major step there, as that council and its variety of interests represented (critically, including both advertisers and media outlets) sets widely-agreed-upon guidelines, including for overall accreditation (including the normal Nielsen panel approach, which was also renewed here). And that may get other companies to sign on for this inclusion of first-party data approach, and given how much larger the Big Data+panel numbers often are, that could be a notable ratings shift.
As mentioned, the ratings numbers aren’t necessarily huge for business in and of themselves. The key case in point there is the full incorporation of out-of-home data, which Nielsen rolled out for the fall of 2020 (they’d measured it separately for a few years before that and sent it to clients, but those numbers were only sometimes publicized). That caused tremendous ratings boosts, especially for sports.
But while this incorporation of out-of-home viewing numbers contributed to sports advertising spikes (which also had other factors involved), those prices didn’t grow linearly. Many advertisers argued they’d already priced in the out-of-home viewers, whose existence had been known, but not measured this way.
Of note, out-of-home is still being tweaked, with Nielsen expanding it beyond the top 44 markets this year, particularly important for college football. And it hit some measurement struggles early on as well. So while that move did help sports ads sell for more, the rise wasn’t as much as it might have been based just on the viewership number gains.
We could see a resurgence of that already-counted argument even if this first-party data incorporation becomes more widely-used. Many advertisers would probably say they’ve already accounted for the increased viewers caught in first-party data but not Nielsen panels. And, like any buyer-seller exchange, ad slots are only worth what the two parties agree they’re worth.
The MRC move here does mean Nielsen’s methodology to factor in of first-party data now has significant approval from an outside body, and that could make it more appealing for both broadcasters and advertisers. It will be interesting to see if it becomes more widely adopted, and more of a discussed standard, going forward.
