measurement

How did the simple act of counting TV viewers become so controversial? David Kenny thinks he knows. The CEO of Nielsen has been under fire for months, ever since some of his company’s biggest customers — the nation’s TV networks — began to complain about how Nielsen tabulated viewers during the coronavirus pandemic. They are still complaining. And Nielsen faces a host of upstart rivals with whom the networks are striking new measurement deals. But Kenny says he isn’t letting their maneuvering get in the way of Nielsen’s future.

Nielsen, which has agreed to be acquired by a private-equity group led by Elliott Investment Management, said that its go-shop period has expired without an alternative proposal to buy the company emerging.

Three important ad trade bodies – the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the Advertising Research Foundation’s Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) – Thursday said they are fielding a new study to “explore the industry’s transition to a multi-currency TV market in the U.S.” The study comes as a perfect storm of developments have led up to a Babel-like 2022-23 upfront marketplace, in which a variety of “alternate” currencies are being promoted alongside the industry’s legacy currency — Nielsen — and not one of them currently is accredited by industry self-regulatory body, the Media Rating Council.

Measurement giants faced off at the NewFronts Thursday, as Nielsen alternatives pitched a next generation in TV and video currency, while Nielsen contended you can’t really trust numbers from its rivals’ big data sets.

Measurement of Tubi will expand coverage of streaming devices, including computer, mobile and connected TV inventory served on specific CTV devices.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management will invest $325 million in iSpot.tv as the Seattle-area company tries to loosen industry stalwart Nielsen’s longtime hold on the market for measuring TV ads across broadcast and streaming platforms. The deal, which comes a decade after iSpot was founded, will give Goldman Sachs a “significant minority stake” in the company, according to an announcement Wednesday morning.

E.W. Scripps’ Scripps Networks division said it will use TVision’s viewer attention data to highlight the engaged audiences of its over-the-air channels during upfront presentations. The Scripps Networks entertainment channels include Ion, Grit, Bounce Laff, TrueReal and Defy TV. TVision’s Attention to Duration Index shows that the Scripps networks average 50% higher than other linear networks for keeping its viewers in the room and engaged with ad content.

The measurement company will use Inscape ACR data from approximately 20 million Vizio TVs, obtains first window of exclusivity to Vizio’s newly expanded local station coverage.

The Media Rating Council will reaccredit Nielsen’s national TV ratings service “soon,” and it will fast-track its new digital ratings methodology, with a vote on reaccrediting it within the next few weeks, BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon asserted in a note sent to investors Sunday.

Building on more TV measurement tests from TV advertising sellers, Xandr, the advanced advertising/marketplace unit now owned by Microsoft, announced it has struck deals with six measurement companies in preparation for the upfront TV market. Comscore, EDO, Samba TV, TVision, VideoAmp, and 605 will work with Xandr’s buy- and sell-side advanced TV platforms — Invest TV and Monetize TV.

With cord-cutting continuing, the number of U.S. homes that get content over-the-air through an antenna has grown to 18.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 18.4 million a year ago, according to a new report from Nielsen. Those 19 million homes represent 15.3% of households, up from 14.3% in the fourth quarter of 2018, when there are 16.7 million over the air homes and just 10% in 2010.

Kelly Abcarian, EVP of measurement and impact at NBCUniversal and one of this year’s TVNewsCheck Women in Technology Futurist Award winners, sees measurement as a “team sport” that will be “all about collaboration” that her work is helping to realize.

As the industry continues to try to solve the increasingly complicated measurement problem, YouTube and Nielsen have partnered to add co-viewing metrics to account for multiple viewers watching YouTube TV and YouTube on connected TV.

Beyond Will Smith’s infamous pimp-slap of Chris Rock, the other big news in Hollywood has been the free-for-all assault on Nielsen by networks and advertisers. In the otherwise staid and arcane world of audience measurement, the campaign to replace the Nielsen system with different methodologies has garnered unprecedented press and grown to undeniable proportions. So much so that Nielsen, itself, recently agreed to a $16 billion acquisition by a group of private equity investors who are betting big on the company and the media measurement space.

Another week, another record for Season 2 of Bridgerton on Netflix’s Top 10 list. After last week becoming the most viewed English-language TV title in its premiere weekend, for the week of March 28, the Shonda Rhimes-produced drama broke the record for most-viewed title in a week on the English-language TV list, with 251.7 million hours viewed (Squid Game holds the overall weekly record, with 571.8 million hours viewed).

Following other major network groups’ new data deals for the upcoming TV ad upfront, Discovery said it will be using TV analytics company EDO as a “preferred behavioral measurement partner” to measure ad campaigns for marketers’ business outcomes. EDO will give brands TV commercial airings connected to engagement data via the EDO Ad EnGage product — to be used by Discovery during the upfronts for its advertising clients.

“For any version of Nielsen, current as-is or next after-sale, the ad industry needs are identical: deep disclosures and real transparency, commitment to the modernization that sharply increased competition demands, and increased collaboration rather than collision with their clients and customers,” says Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, a trade group that represents the TV networks to the advertising industry. “We are rooting hard for these overdue outcomes from any version of Nielsen.”

Inventing Anna topped Nielsen’s ranking of U.S. streaming originals for a third straight week, while another Netflix offering, some docuseries called Worst Roommate Ever, made its debut in the No. 3 spot. Inventing Anna for the week of Feb. 28 amassed nearly 1.2 billion total minutes viewed across nine total episodes.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Vikrant Mathur of Future Today, Pierre Marc-Diennet of Lotame and Mark Zagorski of DoubleVerify about Nielsen’s $16 billion sale to a private equity consortium and what it means for the company’s future and the broader landscape of TV measurement.

TV ratings giant Nielsen is to be acquired by private equity consortium Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. and Brookfield Business Partners in a deal valued at around $16 billion. The Nielsen board of directors voted unanimously to support the acquisition proposal, which represents a 10% premium over the consortium’s previous proposal and a 60% premium over Nielsen’s unaffected stock price.

As the audience for traditional television has gotten older, broadcast and cable sales and research executives have argued that Madison Avenue’s fixation on younger viewers is costing them money by devaluing the majority of their audiences. They also argue that by ignoring mature viewers, marketers are ignoring consumers with wealth and purchasing power. In a guest blog  Monday, Nielsen VP Sue Tremblay argues that including people 55 to 64 would incorporate half of the Baby Boomer generation and all Gen Xers.

The Media Rating Council said that Nielsen’s bid to get its national and local ratings services reaccredited won’t be completed until the third quarter at the earliest, and after the upfront TV ad market takes place.

NBCUniversal says iSpot.tv will be this upfront ad market’s cross-platform “currency” partner for marketers for the 2022-23 TV season. NBC has added eight other certifications, beyond the previously announced iSpot.tv. It has also added seven new “certified” measurement partners. “As we head into the upfront season, we wanted to make it clear that, at this moment in time, we will be transacting against our certified cross-platform partner, iSpot.tv,” Kelly Abcarian, EVP of measurement & impact, advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal, said Tuesday.

Nielsen Holding said its board rejected an offer from a consortium of private equity investors worth $25.40 a share. The company also said that one of its large shareholders, WindAcre Partnership,  said it would acquire a large enough position in NIelsen equity to block the takeover bid.

Despite the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, and the heightened demand for news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine late in the month, February’s TV viewership trailed January’s per usual, according to Nielsen’s latest update of The Gauge, its monthly look at how consumers are watching content across top TV platforms.

The Comscore/SMI eCPM solution provides unified metrics for evaluating, planning and optimizing audience-based campaigns on TV.

TV networks are bullish on using alternatives to Nielsen panel data as currencies for deals in the upcoming spring ad haggle. But despite Nielsen’s widely reported issues and new alliances forging between media sellers and measurement firms, it’s unlikely 2022 will be the year the TV industry shifts en masse away from Nielsen.

The suit charges the ratings firm with fraud and concealment and alleges media companies have suffered billions of dollars in damages.

Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama will use iSpots.tv’s real-time capabilities for tracking audience delivery, attention to ads.

At a time when the ad industry is developing and testing a variety of alternate currencies for planning and buying media, Comscore has chosen a long-time Madison Avenue media-buying exec as its first “vice president of currency.” Elizabeth Daly, who most recently was VP-group media director of video investment at IPG’s Mediahub Worldwide unit, has been named to lead Comscore’s “currency initiatives,” the company said.

Nielsen has sued potential rival TVSquared, alleging that TVSquared infringed on a Nielsen patent covering measuring audience exposure across platforms while protecting viewers’ personal information. TVSquared was acquired last weekfor about $160 million by Innovid,

Nielsen said it is examining its operations in Russia at a time when several media companies have elected to shut down their activities there. “Due to the escalating situation in Russia and Ukraine, Nielsen is actively working with its clients and vendors in Russia to pause new business and evaluating a plan for its existing operations in Russia,” the company said in a statement. Nielsen declined to elaborate on whether it was measuring Russia’s state-run media.

Cox will have access to a broad range of Nielsen services, including Scarborough, Arianna, Local Media Impact, and more.

The company’s third major acquisition in 14 months expands iSpot’s currency offering with solution for verification of TV audiences in bars, restaurants, gyms, transportation hubs and public spaces.

Don’t count Nielsen out of TV’s measurement wars just yet. Disney said Tuesday that it had entered into an agreement with Publicis Media to test work on Nielsen’s new NielsenOne system, a measurement product that aims to count unduplicated video audiences across linear and digital screens and that Nielsen expects to introduce formally later this year.