MRC to suspend Nielsen accreditation

The Media Rating Council (MRC) announced that the MRC Board of Directors has voted in favor of the following actions:•To suspend the MRC accreditation of Nielsen’s National Television service.•

An accreditation suspension may be imposed by MRC when an accredited service has been documented to have material standards non-compliance or operational issues that are deemed to have exerted an adverse effect on the service.Under MRC procedures, a formal notification of the possibility of suspension is required to be provided to the service 30 days in advance of a suspension officially taking effect.  In this instance, Nielsen was informed of the possibility of a suspension action on August 12th for the National Television service, and on August 20th for the Local Market services.

Regarding the Board’s decisions concerning the Local Market services, the Board chose to end the hiatus status that had existed for those markets since January 2021 after Nielsen’s confirmation to MRC on August 17th of its intention to add Broadband-Only (BBO) homes to its local panels in October 2021.Based on continuing issues with the Local Market services, some of which parallel those of the National Television service, as well as the Board’s assessment of Nielsen’s ability to appropriately integrate BBO viewing at a local market level at this time, the Board additionally suspended the accreditation for the Local Markets as well.  

“While we aredisappointed that the situation hascome to this, we believe these arethe proper actionsfor the MRC to take at this time,” said George W. Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of the MRC.  “MRC’s Board of Directors, whichrepresents an extremely broadrange of industry constituencies, and includes advertisers, agencies, and media companies of all types, is strongly unified in its positionson these matters.  MRCstandscommitted in our willingness towork with Nielsen toward the goal of being able to restore accreditation to these important servicesat the earliest possible time, and it is our hope that Nielsen likewise will continue to engage with MRC and its clients in pursuit of that goal.