Musings on the Media Rating Council

Do you remember the episode of I Love Lucy, where Bob Hope was the guest star? It seems that Lucy really, REALLY wanted Ricky to put her in the show, but he was, as per usual, disinclined to do so. Fortuitously, she had Bob Hope in her corner.. The resulting number was “Nobody Loves the Ump.”

Nobody loves the ump. I think about that song sometimes when the topic of the Media Rating Council (MRC) comes up. Writing standards and overseeing audits and accreditations must sometimes feel like a thankless task. But there are a lot of tangible benefits the MRC brings to the table, including the two biggies— transparency and trust. Without trust, it is difficult for an industry to align around a given data set as the basis for, literally, billions of dollars in transactions.

I joined Comscore as Chief Research Officer in 2007, after an 8-month stretch consulting for them on their new MRC engagement. For 13 years I oversaw the Comscore audit function; eventually that team grew to 7 people, helmed by the earnest and steadfast Larry Goldstein. And sure, the MRC was the ump, but oddly enough, I LIKE this ump. It isn’t a perfect institution, they don’t oversee perfect processes, but on balance they are a force for good in the space I now call “advertising analytics.”

And there’s another non-trivial point. This text comes directly from the MRC site:

“After investigation and extensive testimony the (congressional) Committee determined that Industry self-regulation, including independent audits of rating services was preferable to government intervention. The Harris Committee hearings resulted in the formation of an Industry-funded organization to review and accredit audience rating services called the Broadcast Rating Council (now referred to as the MRC).” (emphasis added)

Preferable to government intervention. I think I speak for everyone who has ever worked in audience measurement in the US when I say, thank you MRC for keeping congress out of our knickers.

Astute readers will likely suspect that just about now, there’s a “but” coming.

At the risk of giving Beavis and Butthead something to snicker at… here’s my “but.”

Right now, all 48 Nielsen Audio PPM markets are either accredited or in the process. None of the diary markets are; the diary markets— around 200 of them— are on haitus. My estimate is that something like 65%-70% of the population is accounted for in those 48 markets, so that’s probably 70% or so of the Nielsen Audio revenues (local revenues; they have national radio measurement as well.)

Nielsen recently removed Nielsen One from the process pending roadmapped enhancements (NTI, NHI, NSS, and N-Power all remain accredited; NTI out-of-home is in process.).

VideoAmp recently exited the process, but will re-assess in 2027.

iSpot is accredited for their commercial occurrence data. No other commercial occurrence provider is accredited or in process.

Among attention measurement providers, Adelaide is in the process, having completed the pre-audit. XPLN, a French company in the attention space, has recently entered the process. None others are listed on the MRC website. (Note: I am an Advisor to Adelaide.) EDIT: Brian Ejsmont, who worked on the DoubleVerify MRC audit, informs me that their accreditation includes an Attention metric. Sorry, DV. My bad.

No services measuring “lift” or “incrementality” are in process.

The whole industry is aflutter over outcomes. The MRC has published Outcomes Measurement Standards (Ron Pinelligave a fine presentation on these yesterday; reach out to MRC directly for the deck). There is a push toward outcomes replacing ratings as advertising’s transactional currency.

There are no outcome measurement providers accredited or in process.

Buyers and sellers of advertising, who rely on all these kinds of services, collectively, as an essential pillar of commerce, would naturally like to see more services accredited. When services resist submitting to an audit, it naturally raises the question: “what have they got to hide?”

This is the wrong question. They almost certainly have nothing to hide.

Rather, many of these services are forced to make the most responsible economic decision. Completing the MRC process isn’t cheap, And it becomes difficult to justify the cost when it represents too large a share of the service’s revenues.

When I was at Comscore, my MRC auditing budget was well into seven figures. In addition, we had a dedicated team which at its largest, as I say, was 7 people. As Bugs Bunny would say, “that’s a lotta cabbage.” Many measurement services, especially nascent ones, simply can’t justify the spend. And that’s a shame, because more throughput would be better for everyone.

Consider Nielsen Audio for example; not to pick on them, but this is illustrative. The PPM markets, all accredited or in process, probably account for easily 70% of their radio revenues. The other 200-ish diary markets are on hiatus. But honestly. Given the fact that most of the spend in those 200 hiatus markets is local direct (the fast food franchisee, the bottler, the car dealer), and that the diary audit might cost as much as the PPM audit, a decision to forego accreditation in those markets may be entirely justifiable. An investment against 30% of revenue is a different call than an investment against 70%.

I’ve talked to several smaller companies who offer different types of advertising and media measurement— lift, attention, outcomes and so on. It is not uncommon for these companies to wrestle with how to justify the labor and audit costs of accreditation, given the size of their business. Here are some entirely made-up numbers, so don’t try to figure out who I’m talking about (it’s no one), but you can see where it would be tough for a company, barely profitable on $3 million in revenues, to find $300K for an audit. And by the way, that’s an annual budget line, not a one time thing.

So what are we to do? I think there is a case to be made for rethinking the MRC audit process, with the goal of figuring out a way to bring more companies into the process. I think we need to recognize that cost is a non-trivial factor. Maybe it is possible to create tiers, such that companies can participate at an “entry level,” and grow to full accreditation as their business grows.

I’d ask what you think, but I haven’t figured out how to offer a comments section yet.