The accreditation status of Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel offering remains up in the air—and it’s set to stay that way for some time longer. The Media Rating Council (MRC), a third-party organization that accredits media research and ratings products, has not yet made a decision about the accreditation status of Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel since first kicking off a review last fall. The MRC first began evaluating the measurement product in September, and Nielsen was asked to address several concerns raised about the accuracy of the figures it was providing in the product. Those concerns included more accurately representing demographic segments and adjusting its weighting to reduce errors, Marketing Brew reported in the fall. Since then, the offering’s accreditation status has remained in limbo, and there have been delays to the MRC’s decision to give Nielsen more time or begin the process of stripping accreditation. The organization held a meeting in February, where a decision about whether Nielsen’s product would be accredited was once again pushed, according to two sources familiar with the goings-on of MRC member meetings. Last week, the MRC provided a public update noting that while Nielsen has proposed solutions and made “notable progress” in addressing some of the concerns, MRC members were still waiting to obtain impact data from Nielsen to evaluate the effects of changes to its modeling and weighting processes. Because the impact data is being rolled out in phases, MRC’s review remains incomplete, and it will take even longer before a final evaluation can be reached, the MRC said. “We understand and we regret that these changes will be disruptive to business processes of the marketplace” a letter from the organization read. Read more here.—JS | 
