The messy world of TV currency and how competitors are trying to unseat Nielsen

Comscore is coming for Nielsen — or at least that’s what Jackelyn Keller believes. The company’s new CMO is confident her company will take major national upfront currency budgets from Nielsen next year.

With technology that covers 75 million TV screens across 30 million households, Keller argues Comscore’s big data approach is light-years ahead of its rival. The rapid rise of streaming, connected TV (CTV) and programmatic only strengthens the case, she says.

Nielsen still controls national TV currency, but challengers like Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot see an opening as streaming and programmatic change how ads get sold. The problem is that legacy contracts and decades of data keep much of the market locked in — for now.

Nielsen, for its part, has also been adapting. It’s moving beyond panel-only measurement (which will remain available until the end of 2025 for analytics purposes) and pushing forward with Big Data + Panel measurement. VideoAmp and iSpot similarly argue their offerings outperform Nielsen.

Not everyone agrees with Keller’s bold claim that Comscore will take budgets from Nielsen. Industry experts tell The Current that unseating Nielsen as the top currency won’t be easy.

The behind-the-scenes tug-of-war

Nielsen’s position is bolstered by partnerships with nearly every major holding company and all of the major TV networks. GroupM remains loyal to Nielsen as the dominant currency, and Fox sees Nielsen as its “first language” for currency.

But critics argue that Nielsen’s advantage stems not from its product but because of its entrenched position as the legacy option in a market that doesn’t want to change.

Some network leaders acknowledge the tension between legacy and innovation. TelevisaUnivision’s now former president of ad sales and marketing, Donna Speciale — a longtime critic of panel-only measurement — recently told Ad Age that 10% to 15% of its 2024 upfront deals transacted on big data. “Nielsen isn’t perfect but it’s the standard,” she said.

“I don’t think the adoption has anything to do with the [Nielsen] product itself,” Keller speculates. “I really believe it’s from the infrastructure. I can’t think of another logical reason.”

Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), the industry trade organization representing TV networks, also says it’s time to move past Nielsen as the king currency and into a multicurrency world.

“No one else in our ecosystem has been given the amount of runway, leeway and endless patience at ultra-exorbitant costs and has continually disappointed,” Cunningham tells The Current. “We just can’t wait anymore.”

The VAB versus Nielsen

The VAB has notably been at odds with Nielsen for years. Back in 2021, Nielsen lost its national TV accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC ) — at the VAB’s request. That accreditation, which was revoked for underreporting viewers during the pandemic, was reinstated April 2023.

Nielsen once again faced scrutiny this May after significantly misrepresenting reach and frequency numbers, with Cunningham telling Ad Age, “It is time to be the irresistible force that steps over the unmovable object.”

A Nielsen spokesperson tells The Current that while it welcomes competition, advertisers and publishers need a standard measurement, which they have clearly chosen as Nielsen.

Industry sources estimate Nielsen controls around 80% to 90% of the national currency market today.

“Nielsen is and will continue to be the gold standard for audience measurement because we consistently deliver our clients the best product,” a Nielsen spokesperson says. “We work hand in hand with them to evolve the industry.”

Untangling from Nielsen: MSAs, switching costs and historical data

There’s plenty of interest in testing alternative currencies, with 59% of U.S. brand and agency decision-makers saying they’ve tried one in the past year, according to a 2024 survey from Advertiser Perceptions. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed found the alt currencies worked as well or better than Nielsen.

There have been proclamations for years that this is the year alternative currencies will take Nielsen’s crown. Wide-scale adoption has been slower than anticipated for three major reasons — Nielsen’s multiyear contracts with TV networks, the switching costs for agencies to integrate new currencies and the historical data Nielsen has, which informs comparative pricing year to year.

“Their ability to endure this disappointment has to do largely with their MSAs (master service agreements),” Cunningham says. “They have these enormous multiyear contracts with all of the publishing companies who [need] them in order to be able to transact business with the buy side.”

“That is their lifeblood,” he adds.

The New York Times reported earlier this year that those contracts with Nielsen can be worth around $300 million a year for each major TV network.

VideoAmp Executive Chairman Peter Liguori recently suggested that networks might be looking at $1 billion deals with Nielsen that could theoretically cost half as much with VideoAmp.

In 2024, VideoAmp cleared $3 billion in upfront deals — an 880% increase from 2023 — with agreements across NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon, Netflix, and all five major agency holding companies.

While Cunningham says there’s been “stubborn resistance” around currency, behind-the-scenes conversations with video investment groups and station group owners have intensified in the last six months, making a multicurrency market increasingly likely to grow.

“Everyone seems to say they want there to be multiple currencies,” Josh Chasin, principal at consultancy Knot Simpler, tells The Current. Chasin spent a collective 17 years at Nielsen, Comscore and VideoAmp, most recently as VideoAmp’s chief measurability officer in 2024. “In practice though, the agencies appear to be reluctant to migrate to the alternative currencies for the traditional part of the business.”

Chasin says it’s hard to convince a CFO it’s worth taking on the initial costs of switching currencies. To do so, he thinks agencies must integrate a new infrastructure for planning, tracking and buying that has been built on Nielsen.

Nielsen’s historical data further helps inform how much money agencies spend year to year and at what price. No alternative currency has that much historical data, and Nielsen’s move to Big Data + Panel adds 75 million devices across 45 million households to its existing 41,000 panel households, which could create new historical data standards.

Chasin calls it a pivotal moment for Nielsen and the industry since “the built-in protection that they have against competitors is being the legacy source.”

“That’s where I think it’s inertia more than consensus,” Keller adds. “It’s just the way it’s been happening for years.”

Programmatic’s place in shifting upfront measurement

As upfront dollars continue to shift more toward being transacted programmatically, measurement has to evolve past the traditional age and gender demos to advanced targets. This is a key selling point for challengers like Comscore, which allows buyers to incorporate more advanced and addressable audiences into their buys.

“Comscore is a modern currency built for this shift, bridging legacy expectations like demo guarantees with the flexibility to activate demo buys and then optimize with advanced audiences,” Keller says.

Nielsen, live sports and the upfronts

Despite the challenges from new currencies, a major boon for Nielsen’s prospects is the emerging dominance of live sports within the upfronts. The measurement giant recently signed a deal with the WNBA, adding to the collection of leagues it works with — NFL, MLS, NHL, PGA, NCAA, MLB, UFC, WWE, LPGA and Premier League.

Nielsen also says it measures major games on streaming, from Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL games to Thursday Night Football on Amazon. All of this gives Nielsen a major edge in live sports, according to Jennifer Kohl, VML’s chief media officer. She doesn’t see Comscore or anyone else jumping Nielsen by next year’s upfront season.

VideoAmp’s Liguori has a much different outlook.

“The captain of the Titanic wished that he had turned from the iceberg a little bit earlier,” Liguori said. “And what we’re doing is supplying all the warning signs that a shift needs to take place.”