This has led to wins leveraging a few of the business’s discontent towards Nielsen.
For example, Paramount turned to VideoAmp in late 2024 for its viewership reporting over a dispute with the cost of Nielsen’s services, and, throughout its January Golden Globes broadcast—one in every of VideoAmp’s first main public exams—VideoAmp discovered that the awards present reached an average of 10.1 million viewers. Nielsen would later report that the occasion reached a median of 9.3 million.
Concerning the Golden Globes state of affairs, a spokesperson from Nielsen mentioned that numbers have been issued so shoppers can get “a full view of the business.”
“That’s one of many nice advantages of working with Nielsen—you get a full evaluation of TV viewership over a number of years,” the spokesperson added. “This info was sought out by the business as a result of we offer essentially the most correct and trusted measurement.”
Whereas a number of publishers, together with Paramount and NBCUniversal, declare to be measurement-agnostic, two patrons informed ADWEEK that the consistency of Nielsen throughout the business makes it a staple that’d be onerous to supplant.
Liguori mentioned that as a substitute of displacing Nielsen as a foreign money, he needs VideoAmp to have a spot in a multicurrency world, the place it has already made strides. Over the past 12 months, VideoAmp reported $3 billion in foreign money ensures, an 880% year-over-year development, the corporate mentioned.
However even when the TV business have been to constantly transact on a number of currencies, the market usually treats Nielsen’s numbers because the “fact set,” in line with an exec from one other Nielsen competitor.
Competitors have also complained that Nielsen prevents its information from being in contrast with different measurement suppliers, which solidifies Nielsen because the supplier of that “fact set,” making it tough to chip away at its dominance.
“The business has full transparency on our information and measurement—and so they can replicate our measurement on our platforms, which they’re educated to make use of,” a Nielsen spokesperson mentioned in response.
Taking measure of the business’s future
Regardless of complaints concerning the upheaval round Nielsen’s panel + massive information providing, it doesn’t appear as if the TV business is stepping away from it.
As a substitute, they’re making an attempt to adapt to it.
Chatting with ADWEEK in Could, John Halley, Paramount’s ad sales chief, mentioned, “When the info units change, there’s some turbulence there that must be understood. That course of is a internet new for many advertisers, most companies, and most publishers.”
