Nielsen beginning on Feb. 26 will change its definition of “live” television to include video delays of up to three minutes for streaming services, the ratings agency said in a letter sent to clients last week. Previously, that figure was at 25 seconds, which is still the length Nielsen will use for set-top and over-the air viewing. TV network execs have been frustrated with how Nielsen has counted its “live” ratings, which had not accounted for the newer streaming services, many of which operate on a delay. Nielsen’s policy has long been that when viewers watch a game that is delayed by more than 25 seconds from live, they get counted as a “live-plus-same-day” viewer, not a live viewer. That is an important distinction because broadcast networks like NBC, CBS and Fox sell their sports programming based on “live” ratings, not “live-plus-same-day,” which is used for entertainment programming. Nielsen first alerted TV execs to the problem in October, and several network execs vented publicly to the Wall Street Journal in a story two weeks ago. With big events like the Super Bowl and the Pyeongchang Games coming up, network execs are getting even antsier to work out a solution quickly and have been quick to talk about their frustration by what they say is a too slow pace to make a change. “Nielsen made us aware of this problem in a client meeting in late October, and we’ve been asking them for a fix from the minute we found out about it,” said NBC Sports Group Senior VP/Research Joe Brown. “Every week that goes by is lost revenue for every broadcaster who guarantees on a live rating.”
ONE REASON FOR LOWER NFL RATINGS? These problems have cost the network “tens of millions of dollars” during this NFL season alone by failing to count people watching games via streaming devices like smart TVs, connected TVs and video game consoles, Brown said. “We have been able to find -- in some cases -- up to 2% of viewing that is being mis-credited,” Brown said. “Two percent doesn't sound like a lot. Multiply that by the entire industry that’s doing live guarantees, and you’re talking tens of millions of dollars.” A Nielsen spokesperson said, “The industry has seen a growing increase in consumer viewing of live content streamed to their TV sets. However, we found that when live content is streamed to the TV set, delivery takes longer than that of traditional cable and over-the-air delivery. In some instances, it could take up to three minutes, which falls outside Nielsen's current TV definition for Live viewing, which is 25 seconds, and it credits as ‘Same Day Playback.’ Because of this, we are currently working alongside our clients to implement a change in our processing systems to re-define the Live definition for streamed content on the TV set to three minutes.”
LONGER DELAY FOR STREAMING PLATFORMS: The issue has come to a head this year because of the newfound popularity of streaming providers like PlayStation Vue and YouTube TV, which regularly have delays that exceed 25 seconds. “With these new Internet providers, there’s a latency that’s not necessarily due to the way it’s being broadcast but really because of the strength of peoples’ Internet connection in many cases,” Brown said. “It varies from user to user.” NBC found that while NFL ratings are down this year, the live-plus-one-minute delayed rating is up 60%. The bulk of that increase is due to the growth of streaming service like Sling TV and DirecTV Now. Estimates have more than 2 million people subscribing to those types of services currently. “While the user is watching what they consider to be live -- because it’s as quick as they can get the signal -- it’s more than 25 seconds delayed from what Nielsen considers live and now falls out of our monetizable currency,” Brown said. “PlayStation Vue launched in ’15, and here we are two years later and still haven’t figured out what viewing is live and what is truly playback. That’s just unfortunate.”
