Company faces a double whammy: challenges in its legacy products and customers looking for alternative ways to measure streaming viewership
TV ratings company Nielsen has been the behemoth in its field for decades, but the shift toward streaming is disrupting its business model and prompting buyers and sellers of ads to look at alternatives.
For years, Nielsen Holdings PLC has been synonymous with measuring U.S. TV ratings, which provide audience estimates that networks use to sell commercial time and reassure advertisers they got what they paid for.
But Nielsen’s hold is loosening as streaming gains steam and traditional broadcast and cable TV lose viewers. The New York-based company has introduced metrics for streaming in recent years, but in this field it is just one of many players. Moreover, confidence in its legacy TV measurements has eroded, partly due to pandemic-related undercounting of viewers. Nielsen’s recent challenges have prompted a watchdog group to pull its accreditation for the company’s national TV ratings last week.
