tv ratings – seidman.org

Why the World Cup numbers differ in ESPN press releases from the reported Nielsen numbers

July 7, 2014July 2, 2014 by Robert Seidman

tl;dr: press releases are for bragging rights, Nielsen ratings are for facilitating the buying and selling of advertising.

Last Monday (June 23), ESPN sent out a press release saying that World Cup match between USA and Portugal the day before averaged 18.2 million viewers.

Then the Nielsen numbers came out showing the telecast averaged 13.8 million viewers, nearly a 4.5 million viewer discrepancy. At TV by the Numbers we heard cries that we were reporting the wrong numbers. We’re not, but why are the numbers different?

Myth: It’s hard for Nielsen to measure out-of-home viewing

July 7, 2014June 27, 2014 by Robert Seidman

Don’t blame Nielsen.

Compared to, say, curing the common cold, it’s relatively very easy for Nielsen to measure out-of-home viewing. But easy does not equal “cheap” or “free” so more accurately one could say “it’s easy, but expensive to measure and nobody wants to foot the bill.”