It turns out more people watched the Los Angeles Chargers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs on YouTube than previously thought. In a blog post updated on Friday, YouTube reported that the actual average minute audience was 19.7 million viewers globally, rather than the previously reported 17.3 million.
The discrepancy was due to an internal technical issue, which led to a subset of legitimate views on YouTube’s end not being categorized as actual views. “We’ve revalidated the numbers with Nielsen, after providing them with the updated first-party data. This is an unfortunate situation and we’ll do better next time,” YouTube wrote in an editor’s note added to the post.
As for the game’s U.S. metrics, the AMA audience was 18.5 million, as opposed to the previously reported 16.2 million, per Nielsen. International viewers accounted for an AMA of 1.2 million instead of 1.1 million, according to YouTube.
Moving forward, YouTube will continue to work closely with third-party measurement teams to ensure the company reports the most accurate data possible, an insider familiar with the matter told TheWrap. In the wake of the São Paulo game, YouTube is discussing how to integrate ratings best practices.
As YouTube’s first live event measured by Nielsen, the Chiefs vs. Chargers game was already in a unique position. YouTube commissioned a custom report from Nielsen specifically for this game due to the fact that Google does not currently participate in Nielsen’s Live Streaming Measurement solution and the company had fewer than 100 days to build out the necessary structures Nielsen requires for its measurement analysis. Because of these factors, YouTube’s first NFL game can’t be perfectly compared to other streaming games reported by Nielsen.
But no matter how you cut it, 19.7 million is a solid showing for a first go-around.
If you’re to take anything away from this update, it’s that accurate audience measurement is an incredibly difficult and time-consuming practice, especially when it comes to the wild world of streaming. It always takes streamers a while to get their measurement statistics right. Now it’s YouTube’s turn.
