Nielsen has a set of enhancements and updates ahead for its TV ratings for the 2026-2027 season, including a change to how its monthly snapshot works across platforms, something that caused a slight controversy earlier this year. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, shares what we know.
New Measurements
Not only will there be a change to how they measure the total number of local TV users, but there will also be an update to the co-viewing measurement and more accurate weighting for their big data and panel areas. These tweaks will be rolled out from September, after approval by the Media Rating Council.
Interestingly, it seems that neither Nielsen nor users are expecting the numbers to change much, at least for public release, but Nielsen still believes the product will emerge with greater accuracy than the present system.
Delayed Changes
Many of these changes were actually slated for a February rollout, but client pushback led them to hold them over to the start of the new TV season. Concerns were mostly around the use of Advertising Research Foundation data (i.e., the DASH TV Universe Study), as the reset could have unfairly favored cable platforms, due to a lag in data collection. Reportedly, Nielsen has now addressed that lag to make the Gauge data more aligned with currency ratings for the ad rate industry.
Naturally, it’s expected that, even with the changes, streaming will remain the dominant platform-of-choice for viewers, likely by a large margin. However, it’s hoped that bringing the DASH study data on board will set a more accurate baseline for legacy viewing, as well as streaming itself.
Nielsen will also be enhancing its co-viewing measurement to bring in data from wearable devices it offers, and bringing in new data for better estimation for Spanish-language programming. It will also introduce measures to account for Smart TV viewers who opted out of data sharing and add machine learning tools for tighter demographic data.
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