This communication contains a revised pulsing schedule, as well some updates around the pulsing process. We understand that an open and transparent dialogue with agencies is necessary, but please use this information to verbally manage agency expectations.

Pulse Schedule of Availability:  Now that Ampersand is ingesting and matching age/gender (and HH) overnight data for all 200+ local markets to pulse our local business, availability for a full prior week of pulsing reports is changing.

• Availability for LPM (top 25) markets will shift from Tuesday PM to Thursday PM
• RPD+ markets will be available on Friday PM
• All other markets will be available on the following Monday AM

Attached in the link below, you will find a schedule piece to reference as needed. We advise not to share it externally, but to communicate verbally with the agencies.

Please note:

• This new schedule is only a day or two behind the availability of Nielsen age/gender local overnight data to the marketplace.  The timing is different because we are using actual data as opposed to Fusion/NDM models, which were faster but less accurate.
• The schedule to provide logs should not change.
• The schedule and availability of DDTV Pulses is not changing.
• The automatic Pulse Summary reports that are sent directly to the MVPDs will shift to Friday AM and will contain delivery pacing for the prior week for LPM markets. We are working to add a second delivery date for Tuesday AM to provide pacing for all non-LPM markets. More to come!
• The customer care dashboard will continue to update daily with a 1 day latency.
• A separate communication about these schedule changes will be sent directly to our owners and MVPD partners as well.

Zeroes: 

Anywhere from 30-50% of the spots we pulse (and post) on a standard demo like A25-54 are likely to return 0s using Nielsen quarter hour level data. This has been a challenge for many years. These 0s may not have been as obvious using Fusion/NDM pulses, but they were present on posts that sourced Nielsen local TV measurement. Our new pulsing source is simply demonstrating what to expect on the post.

Research can provide more context, but the narrower the demo (W18-34, M25-49, etc.), the more fringe the daypart, and the lower the tier of network, the higher the chances of seeing 0s on pulse/post. There are avenues being explored to reduce the 0s in Nielsen data and/or our fulfillment practices, but please recognize that these 0s are not a reflection of incomplete, bad, or erroneous data.