Nielsen offers raw ratings data, ‘stunning’ stats

As we’ve been reporting, broadcasters and media buyers have been up in arms over how to classify and value ratings data when it comes to commercials and time-shifted viewing. Now Nielsen says it will offer its clients raw data that will enable the industry to start using commercial ratings their own way — if they want. Also, it appears that a consensus is beginning to emerge on how to value time-shifted viewing. In a meeting yesterday, Nielsen released updated stats that showed that DVR playback is growing faster than the industry (but not Lost Remote) initially thought: 40 percent of all viewing in DVR households in the 18-49 demo is time-shifted. “The data you just showed is stunning,” said NBC research chief Alan Wurtzel, declaring, “The future of half of all viewing is time-shifted. If not now, certainly in a year or two, ‘live’ is going to be a completely irrelevant measure.” MediaPost reports that both ad buyers and broadcasters began to agree that time-shifted viewing should count when determining ad rates, although only time-shifted viewing that occurs “one or a few days of an original telecast.”