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MRC Withholds December PPM Accreditation

Nielsen “firmly stand behind” its data

News on the radio ratings side of the house … The Media Rating Council is withholding its accreditation from the December 2016 Nielsen Audio PPM service reports in markets where PPM is accredited (list at bottom).

Accreditation “will be withheld until such time that Nielsen Audio has fully addressed MRC’s inquiries and had completed additional analyses requested by MRC that demonstrate to MRC’s satisfaction that the PPM service disruption that affected, at minimum, the first week of the December reporting period, has been addressed …”

MRC is an industry-funded organization created to review and accredit audience rating services; it was established at the prompting of Congress years ago. Its membership is open to any media organization that uses media research. (Learn about MRC here.)

A Nielsen spokesperson said the company disagrees with the decision but remains committed to the MRC accreditation process.

“Following the PPM connectivity issue during week one of the December survey, Nielsen’s Data Science team conducted a rigorous analysis of data quality and we firmly stand behind the December PPM monthly estimates,” it stated. “The sample performance for the December report is inline with the standards that have been used in prior months for the 26 accredited markets.”

MRC said that since the connectivity disruption, Nielsen has shared info about the outage, but MRC believes the data analyses and responses from the company are incomplete. “MRC and its Radio Committee and Board of Directors are unable to conclude as yet on this matter.”

The reports affected include the RMR Service, PPM Analysis Tool and Tapscan for December 2016 for 26 markets: Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nassau-Suffolk, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Riverside, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis and Tampa.

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