Nielsen: Total audience ratings by year’s end

It had to be a bit awkward—sitting on a panel with your two main competitors, who less than 24 hours earlier announced a merger that has people buzzing about whether their service can finally rival yours.

So it’s understandable that Steve Hasker, Nielsen Global president, came off at times as defensive and at times as combative during Wednesday’s Advertising Week panel.

His big announcement: Total audience ratings, which measure the combined TV and digital audience of shows, will be here by year’s end.

We’ve seemingly heard such guarantees before from Nielsen, which tends to move at its own pace despite clamoring in the media community for these ratings, at a time when viewing patterns are changing drastically.

But with Rentrak and comScore announcing their merger, Nielsen suddenly has more incentive to get these ratings rolled out, something the company seems to realize. On Wednesday it also said it will start counting CBS’s CBS All Access subscribers in the network’s TV ratings, a first.

Hasker’s comments on the panel were at times pointed, saying total audience ratings were coming, “not after a honeymoon, not after a marriage, not after anything else. Now.”

He emphasized that the ratings would be released before comScore and Rentrak had finalized their deal, pending regulatory approval, and dismissed the idea that the newly merged company would form a serious competitor to Nielsen.

The heads of comScore and Rentrak were also on Hasker’s panel, which led to a bit of back and forth. At one point Rentrak CEO Bill Livek said Nielsen should be talking with its competitors.

Tags: comscore, measurement, nielsen, ratings, rentrak, total audience measurement, total audience ratings