Nielsen Is Speeding Up Its Streaming Ratings With Daily Data

Nielsen is accelerating its streaming ratings, providing the entertainment industry with a much quicker insight into show performance across platforms. The measurement company has reduced the delay for its public weekly streaming Top 10 charts to 11 days, down from nearly a month, according to Vulture. Nielsen is also offering paying clients daily streaming ratings, enabling networks and streamers to monitor viewing within 48 hours.

Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen's senior vice president of product strategy, stated that this development "really puts [streaming and linear ratings] on a much more level playing field." The faster turnaround is not due to a change in how Nielsen gauges streaming audiences. Instead, the company has optimized its systems for data collection and validation, enabling results to be processed significantly faster.

This enhancement marks Nielsen's "single biggest improvement" since launching streaming ratings in 2017. The move also equips streaming services with a new method to promote their shows' performance during their peak viewership. Apple TV, which received early access to the faster data, utilized the figures in August to highlight viewership for the premiere of "Ted Lasso."

This acceleration comes as Nielsen continues to modify its TV measurement products in response to the growing fragmentation of viewership across linear television and streaming. The company has also integrated big data into its traditional panel and made adjustments to better capture co-viewing and demographic information. Despite these changes, Nielsen does not plan to make its daily streaming rankings public.

These figures will remain accessible to paying clients, while its expedited weekly charts will provide a more timely public snapshot of streaming viewing. The initial accelerated weekly report covers viewing from August 31 to September 6. Under the previous schedule, those numbers would not have been released until October.