It may seem like viewership records are falling every week, but the new Nielsen \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d era is not winning raves across the board.<\/p>\n
In a statement originally given to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics<\/a>, Nexstar-owned CW said Thursday that it has expressed to Nielsen \u201cdeep frustration\u201d with how the measurement company has handled \u201cthe process, communication and methodology behind its Big Data rollout\u201d and described the new metric as \u201cfundamentally flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n At issue are the viewership figures for CW\u2019s \u201cWWE NXT\u201d series and pro wrestling in general. As reported by Thurston, \u201cWWE NXT\u201d is one of four wrestling series \u2014 including \u201cWWE Smackdown\u201d on USA Network, \u201cAEW Dynamite\u201d on TBS and \u201cAEW Collision\u201d on TNT \u2014 to have experienced declines in viewership since the rollout of Big Data + Panel on September 1, both compared to previous weeks<\/a> and to the panel-only viewership figures that are still being tracked.<\/p>\n The Big Data + Panel methodology combines viewership from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers\u2019 internal third-party data with the traditional Nielsen panel. But while that would seem to be additive on paper, the shift from the old \u201cpanel only\u201d model to Big Data + Panel can sometimes result in a smaller audience. That has been the case for those four wrestling series, per Thurston.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sudden and substantial discrepancy in WWE NXT viewership reported by Big Data, relative to long-established viewing patterns, is inexplicable and lacks credibility,\u201d CW said in its statement. It concluded by expressing disappointment with Nielsen for \u201clack of cooperation, transparency, and accountability with its network partners as we work to resolve this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n It is of course commonplace for networks to express displeasure with Nielsen, and this year even an NFL executive \u2014 chief data and analytics officer Paul Ballew \u2014 told reporters that Nielsen has been \u201csystematically undercounting\u201d viewership<\/a>.<\/p>\n Network researchers Flora Kelly of ESPN and Michael Mulvihill of Fox Sports were critical of Nielsen\u2019s custom methodology for the YouTube NFL game in September, which ended up having to be revised after the fact<\/a> due to an issue with YouTube\u2019s first party data. And in the embryonic stages of Big Data, when Nielsen first planned to incorporate Amazon\u2019s internal data into \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d estimates, Kelly, Mulvihill and then-CBS Sports president Sean McManus were all publicly critical<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the CW statement is the first and most significant on-the-record critique of Big Data + Panel by any network since its rollout. And while the CW statement focused specifically on \u201cWWE NXT,\u201d rather than its traditional sports properties, its complaints about the reliability of Big Data + Panel have implications across the board. <\/p>\n For the most part, the traditional sports have seemed to obviously benefit from the shift to Big Data + Panel. Amazon reported Big Data + Panel viewership for its \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d games throughout last season \u2014 before the metric became the official currency \u2014 publicizing the data alongside the then-official panel-only numbers. The Big Data figure was bigger every time, and on average was 7% higher (14.23M) than the panel only figure (13.20M).<\/p>\n But not all sports have benefited. The Big Data average for NASCAR Cup Series races this season was less than one percent higher than the panel only figure (2.478M to 2.476M). For Xfinity Series races \u2014 which aired exclusively on CW \u2014 the Big Data lift was just under two percent.<\/p>\n While it stands to reason that not every property is going to get the same lift from Big Data \u2014 which inevitably will skew younger and thus benefit younger-skewing properties \u2014 concerns about the data have apparently been mounting. In July, Victoria McNally of AdExchanger reported<\/a> that there had been a meeting the prior month meeting between the Video Advertising Bureau, Nielsen and various advertising and research executives, who were \u201cbeyond fed up with discrepancies they\u2019d been seeing\u201d in the Big Data + Panel product.<\/p>\n