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Nielsen is really working the room.
The media-measurement giant aims to measure viewers of video content more accurately and will place a focus on capturing so-called “co-viewing,” or multiple viewers watching the same
piece of programming together at the same location. The effort means TV executives may get more credit for shows that bring people together at parties and in bars, among other gathering places.
Nielsen will use new wearable measurement devices that resemble a smart watch that will be placed on the wrists of Nielsen panelists and capture audio from TV events, shows and movies, allowing for more passive measurement the company believes will create result in a more accurate picture of how many people are watching a given program.
“We are relentless in our pursuit of delivering the most accurate measurement possible for our media and advertising clients,” said Karthik Rao, CEO of Nielsen, in a statement. “We’ve spent months working hand in hand with them and industry experts to make Big Data + Panel even more accurate.”
Despite the rise of a swath of new competitors, Nielsen’s measurement remains the bedrock element of determining the size and other attributes of video audiences, and is a key element in data that helps underpin value and price in talks between advertisers and TV networks and streamers. Nielsen launched a “Big Data + Panel” product in early 2025 that could examine audience interactions with cable and satellite set-top boxes and smart TVs across 45 million households and 75 million devices.
The company has faced some backlash, with the Video Advertising Bureau, an advocacy group that represents major video publishers and TV networks to the advertising industry, accusing Nielsen of releasing data that could be inconsistent.
The new tweaks aren’t being made without preparation. Nielsen has worked with many of its clients to prepare them for the changes, including sharing preview data with them, and negotiating timing of the updates with the Media Rating Council, an independent arbiter of ratings-measurement systems and technologies.
In addition to the work to capture co-viewing, Nielsen has fixed timing delaysin its use of data from the Advertising Research Foundation. It has combined data from two different surveys — the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census, and the National Hispanic Enumeration Survey– to better estimate audiences for Spanish-language content. And it is updating its methodology for measuring certain aspects of ACR data, which often comes from technology embedded in smart TVs.
