Stay tuned to find out if Nielsen will issue commercial ratings

Nation's Restaurant News,  Nov 20, 2006  by Gregg Cebrzynski

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The plan by Nielsen Media Research to track viewership of TV commercials was close to being doomed shortly after it was announced, and it's even closer to being doomed now.

For the second time, Nielsen has postponed releasing commercial ratings--which would be helpful to restaurant chains in deciding when and during which shows to advertise--because the networks and ad buyers are battling each other over what type of viewership counts toward the ratings.

The controversy centers on money. Ad buyers don't want to pay for any commercials that are not watched live. The broadcast networks want to be paid for commercials that are watched later on digital video recorders, perhaps up to seven days later.

Nielsen was supposed to issue its first commercial ratings this month, but pushed the date back to Dec. 11 after the major cable networks decided not to participate because they questioned the validity of how the ratings would be determined.

Now Nielsen has postponed release of the ratings indefinitely. A published report said that if one of the four major broadcast networks decides to opt out of the ratings system--apparently ABC was considering doing just that--the entire system would bite the dust.

I first reported on the commercial ratings plan in the July 24 issue of Nation's Restaurant News. Restaurant and agency creatives I had interviewed for that story said they were looking forward to seeing the ratings. The implications, they said, would be huge in two areas: creativity and ad rates.

Suppose a particular TV spot didn't do well in the ratings. That could prompt agency creatives to receive permission to create an ad with a little more bite to grab viewer attention.

A lot of restaurant chains play it safe in their commercials, fearing that anything over the top could alienate their customers. If few customers are bothering to watch the spots, however, they'll get a bit more daring in their ads.

Then there's the effect that low-rated ads might have on how much the networks charge to run them. Let's say a restaurant chain advertises during a show that receives a 10 rating but the commercial pod in which it advertises receives only a 5 rating. That puts pressure on the networks to at least consider lowering the rate to match the actual viewership of the ad, not the viewership of the show.

The networks, cable stations and ad agencies have raised a number of issues concerning commercial ratings since the plan was introduced, and how to measure time-shifted viewing on DVRs is at the top of the list.

For restaurant chains, which routinely offer limited-time meal promotions, the supporting ads are irrelevant if viewers watch them on a DVR after the promotion has run its course.

That's assuming viewers don't watch the shows they've recorded until weeks later, but Nielsen says they're watching sooner than that. It came out with playback data that shows almost all viewers watch their taped shows within four days. Far more than half watch them the same day.

The information gave the networks more ammunition in their battle to get time-shifted viewing into the commercial ratings. Based on media reports, a compromise could be worked out to include some portion of time-shifted viewing in the ratings.

It's inconceivable that the networks and ad agencies won't come to an agreement. This is a groundbreaking effort to measure commercial viewership, and though the process isn't perfect it has the potential to give advertisers a chance to better understand the impact their ads are making, if they're making any impact at all.

gcebrzyn@nrn.com

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