Deadline Ratings Advisory: Nielsen Numbers Delayed Until Late Morning

Due to delays from Nielsen, Simon Cowell and Jennifer Lopez and everyone else are going to have to wait a little longer to see how the return of America’s Got Talent and the debut of World of Dance did last night in the ratings.

“We are experiencing processing delays and Nielsen Fast Affiliates ratings for Tuesday May 30, 2017 will not be available at 11:00am ETZ,” said the data company in a note sent out this morning. “We expect the data to deliver today, Wednesday May 31st, at 1:45pm ETZ.”

While encore heavy CBS and ABC probably aren’t that fussed, NBC and Fox can’t be pleased. The former had a big unscripted Tuesday night and the latter had the finale of its Prison Break revival. At least Nielsen won’t have sports fans on their back as there were no NBA or NHL playoff games on last night. “It’s frustrating how little information they give us,” one net exec said to Deadline of Nielsen’s approach to such delays.

From what I hear this will not be a repeat of the four-day ratings shutdown that hit the Big 4, the CW and everyone else back in March. While annoying to many an exec, that eclipse of sorts was due to a power outage early in the AM on March 12 at Nielsen’s Global Technology and Innovation Center in Oldsmar, Florida. At first with dribbles and then a flood of numbers, it took Nielsen several days to catch up – which was by then in to Live + 3 territory that most outlets seem to prefer anyway.