NBC Universal Television Ratings Tracking Improvement

NBC Universal senior executives needed quicker access to specific television ratings data, summarized according to the needs of their business. In addition, quarter and season ratings performance versus prior time periods was desired. Further, some executives desired a centralized, automated method of tracking key network ratings and cost metrics versus targets.

Although ratings data was available from numerous sources within the company, the desired executive summary data was not readily available and required repeated requests to the ratings department; results were disseminated via Excel spreadsheet. Manual compilation of data required 8-10 man hours for some of the data; other data was simply not available.

What We Delivered
Brady and Associates managed the construction of a business intelligence web application that provided flexible and pre-defined views of network ratings information. Data was sourced from an existing TV ratings database. The web interface supplied numerous ratings views and allows for the input of ratings and cost targets. Ratings are updated daily as new data is received from Nielsen.

Results
NBC Universal executives now have their most business-critical ratings summaries immediately available to them at their request. In addition, ratings performance and cost metrics versus targets and prior year actuals is now available. This information has increased NBC Universal executive’s ability to make strong strategic business decisions.