NBCUniversal vs. Nielsen: Round 2…

Variety’s Andrew Wallenstein writes about comments NBCUniversal Chairman of Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships, Linda Yaccarino, made about Nielsen…

She issued a call to action for the entire industry to make their frustrations known. “It’s unfair to marketers, it’s unfair to content creators, and it’s up to all of us in this industry to take a stand,” said Yaccarino. “If Nielsen isn’t up to the job, we need to walk away and reach beyond a C3 rating.”

Yaccarino cited NBCU’s move last October to take CNBC Business Day off of Nielsen as an example of the industry not having to fear negative repercussions.

“Nothing bad happened,” Yaccarino noted. “The sky didn’t fall. The network didn’t go off the air. In fact, marketers love that they’ve finally got an accurate picture of their audience. And there’s no reason we can’t do that across our entire industry.”

If Nielsen’s move toward introducing a Total Audience Measurement solution that adequately tracked viewing across platforms was supposed to satisfy NBCU, Yaccarino didn’t seem too impressed. She cited Nielsen’s expansion from 25,000 to 40,000 homes to measure wasn’t enough considering offices and bars still aren’t being monitored.

“Yes, Nielsen just debuted their Total Audience metric, but progress is slow, and we have some serious questions about their methodology,” said Yaccarino. “There’s nothing ‘total’ about that metric if you ask me.”