Nielsen planning major ratings change…

In a must read, Media Post’s Joe Mandese writes about Nielsen planning on changing the way it calculates “Reach”…

In a move that has profound implications for the way advertisers and agencies plan and buy television, Nielsen Tuesday informed clients it will make some fundamental changes in the way it calculates its so-called “average audience” ratings – long the currency of the $80 billion TV advertising marketplace. Perhaps the most significant of the changes is that Nielsen will begin including duplicate viewing to all program telecasts in its average audience ratings, a move that could undermine one of the core tenets of Madison Avenue’s media planning theory: unduplicated reach.

Nielsen said it is making the moves, effective in December, to help prepare for other big changes in the way it factors television audience ratings, including the inclusion of so-called “extended screen” viewing of TV programs viewed online. While the absolute amount of duplicate viewing that currently takes place via the Internet and various devices such as digital video recorders and video-on-demand services, currently is small, it is expected to grow over time, and potentially could dilute the meaning of audience reach.

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