“Nielsen has undertaken strong efforts to correct the issues that led to its loss of accreditation 19 months ago and to restore key aspects of its panel performance,” Ivie said in the statement. “The MRC’s audit has shown these efforts have been successful, and as a result, our TV committee and board agreed that accreditation should be reinstated. That said, there is still more work to be done both in the near and long term to ensure Nielsen’s National TAM measurements continue to meet our standards and the requirements of the industry.”
Specifically, he said that work includes ensuring the future incorporation of return path and ACR data and Nielsen validating and improving estimates of broadband-only households. The MRC is also looking for Nielsen to enhance disclosures to users about variability associated with its TV viewing estimates, Ivie said.
“These latter two commitments were especially critical to our decision to re-apply accreditation at this time,” Ivie said.
Measurement outage surprises, sometimes uncovered by TV networks themselves rather than disclosed first by Nielsen, have led to ongoing complaints by industry executives.
An audit committee of the MRC in November declined to recommend reinstating Nielsen’s accreditation, giving the company a list of items to be addressed, which apparently have been.
