Few Changes Expected for Draft Order Updating Nielsen References

A draft order on updating references in FCC rules to Nielsen publications is expected to be approved with few changes at the agency’s Nov. 17 meeting, FCC and industry officials told us. Though the NPRM that preceded the order led to calls from Commissioner Nathan Simington and broadcasters for the FCC to scrutinize its relationship to the ratings company, the draft order says it's “premature to initiate a proceeding at this time” on the matter: “There is currently no apparent alternative data source for the Commission to rely upon.”

The Media Rating Council suspended Nielsen’s accreditation on national and local measurement of TV ratings in 2021, and voted in October to keep the suspension in place. There's no MRC-accredited competitor to Nielsen, though Comscore also sought MRC accreditation. “While it is true the existing suspension of MRC accreditation remains in place at the current time, it is also true that we believe Nielsen has made significant progress on most of the issues that led to that suspension,” said Media Rating Council Senior Vice President-Associate Director David Gunzerath in a statement. “MRC continues to actively work with Nielsen on a path to address the remaining issues so that a consideration of reinstatement of accreditation to the National TV service may occur relatively soon.” Nielsen didn’t comment.

“We will continue to monitor this issue, and we encourage stakeholders to keep us appraised of changes in the broadcast audience measurement market,” said the FCC in the draft Nielsen item. An aide to Simington declined to comment on whether he will again raise the broader issue of the FCC’s dependence on Nielsen Thursday. Both Simington and Commissioner Brendan Carr previously said they would support an inquiry into the matter.

The draft order would update references in the agency’s rules to Nielsen's station index directory and U.S. television household estimates reports. Nielsen “notified the Commission that it will no longer publish the annual Station Index, and that the Household Estimates are no longer necessary to determine a station’s DMA [designated market area]” said an FCC fact sheet on the draft item. The references to those publications in FCC rules would be changed instead to refer to the monthly local TV station information report, a move that was nearly unanimously endorsed by broadcasters at the NPRM stage. The draft specifies “the October Local TV Report published two years prior to each triennial carriage election,” to give broadcasters certainty about their DMA assignments, which was requested by most broadcast commenters.

The local TV report doesn’t contain all the same information as the station index because it “does not regularly include all low-power and Class A stations,” said the draft. Nielsen said it will make that information available to subscribers upon request. “Thus in reliance on this commitment by Nielsen, and with no other viable alternative presented, we adopt our tentative conclusion from the NPRM that the references to the Annual Station Index and Household Estimates be deleted and replaced with the Local TV Report,” the draft said.