Nielsen is dramatically speeding up its streaming ratings, giving the entertainment business a much faster look at how shows are performing across platforms.
The measurement giant is cutting the lag for its public weekly streaming Top 10 charts to 11 days after the end of each measurement period, down from nearly a month, according to Vulture. Nielsen is also now providing paying clients with daily streaming ratings, allowing networks and streamers to track viewing roughly 48 hours later.
“This really puts [streaming and linear ratings] on a much more level playing field,” Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen’s senior vice president of product strategy, told Vulture.
The faster turnaround does not involve a change to how Nielsen measures streaming audiences. Instead, the company has reworked the systems it uses to collect and validate the data, allowing results to be processed significantly faster. Fuhrer called it Nielsen’s “single biggest enhancement” since the company launched its streaming ratings in 2017.
The move also gives streaming services a new way to promote the performance of their shows while they are still generating attention. Apple TV, which received early access to the faster data along with other Nielsen clients last month, used the figures in August to tout viewership for the premiere of “Ted Lasso.”
The accelerated rollout comes as Nielsen continues to make changes to its TV measurement products as viewing becomes increasingly fragmented across linear television and streaming. The company has also incorporated big data alongside its traditional panel and recently made adjustments aimed at improving how it captures co-viewing and demographic information.
The new release schedule also addresses a longstanding drawback of Nielsen’s streaming charts. As TheWrap noted earlier this summer, the rankings had typically arrived about a month after the viewing they measured.
Nielsen does not currently plan to make its daily streaming rankings public. Those figures will remain available to paying clients, while its accelerated weekly charts will provide a more timely public snapshot of streaming viewing.
The first accelerated weekly report covers viewing from Aug. 31 through Sept. 6. Under the previous schedule, those numbers would not have been released until October.
