Nielsen Reissues Cable TV Data Following Error

Nielsen Media Research has warned subscribers not to use digital cable viewing data from its MarketBreaks service from 1 November to 2 February after a processing error rendered the three-month period unusable.

While Nielsen have not revealed the magnitude of the error, it said in an e-mail sent to clients on Friday: “The impact varies greatly in size and direction from program to program and half-hour to half-hour,” advising users not to use “any digital cable data that they may have run in MarketBreaks for these dates.”

The data specialist will now re-issue the data for the three months affected, beginning with the latest week and running backwards. However, financial damage may already have been incurred by those companies using Nielsen’s erroneous data to secure deals.

The National Readership Survey was recently the victim of a processing error, re-issuing the data for quarter three of 2004 following an error by Ipsos-RSL. The corrected data was issued to NRS subscribers via the computer bureaux earlier this month, with the data on the NRS website for periods ending September 2004 also corrected (see NRS To Re-Issue Data For Period To September ’04).

Nielsen Media Research: www.nielsenmedia.co.uk

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