Nielsen has renewed its measurement agreement with local television broadcaster Gray Media for a few more years, the companies announced on Thursday.
Under the agreement, Nielsen will provide local TV measurement across all of Gray Media’s coverage area, which includes local TV stations in more than 113 designated Nielsen markets.
Gray Media owns or operates TV stations that reach 37 percent of the TV viewing audience; the company also operates more than a dozen regional broadcast sports networks and 44 local TV stations affiliated with Comcast’s Telemundo.
As Gray Media makes continued investments in local sports rights, Nielsen said it was uniquely positioned to provide TV audience measurements to the broadcaster. Nielsen affirmed it is “the only company that can reliably measure live sports on streaming” and touted its agreements with major sports leagues like the National Football League (NFL).
In addition to measuring its traditional TV signals, Nielsen will also provide insight into Gray Media’s streaming apps.
“We are happy to renew our relationship with Nielsen for our linear and OTT program streams,” Pat LaPlatney, the President and co-CEO of Gray Media, said in a statement. “As our viewership evolves, it is important that our measurement partners continue to innovate as well.”
“Only Nielsen has the scale, technology and industry trust of both media buyers and sellers to power Gray Media’s growth strategies across their local TV and multicultural stations and broadcast sports networks,” Paul LeFort, the Managing Director of Nielsen’s Local TV Client Services, said in a statement. “This collaboration will drive growth, positive business outcomes and the next era of innovation at the local TV level. We are very excited to be working with Gray Media as they continue to spearhead new ideas and a leadership first position in the industry.”
Nielsen has long been considered the gold standard of TV audience measurement, though some broadcasters have criticized the company in recent years on the perception that Nielsen did not move aggressively enough to consider streaming viewership of entertainment, news and premium events.
Three years ago, executives at Nexstar Media Group said they were seeking alternatives to Nielsen after calling the company’s panels-based product “inadequate” in the era of streaming. Comscore and VideoAmp, two of Nielsen’s competitors, were among the vendors considered by the broadcaster, according to people familiar with the matter.
Last year, Nielsen formally introduced its Big Data + Panel measurement product, which takes into account streaming viewership across measured services. In November, Nexstar said that product fell short of expectations because it was under-counting viewership of professional wrestling programs on its CW Network. Several weeks earlier, officials at the NFL and a leading executive at ESPN also criticized Nielsen’s products.
