Revenues slipped 0.6% to $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2015 due to the foreign currency exchange rate -- but were up 5.6% with that impact.
Nielsen's Buy unit -- its market data business for advertisers -- was down 3.2% to $879 million, up 5.9% without currency issues. Nielsen says “emerging markets” revenue for the business climbed 8.4%.
Nielsen Watch segment -- its traditional media and digital media measuring business -- was 2.8% higher, and 5.2% more sans currency impact, to $745 million.
Audience Measurement of Video and Text gained 7.6%, due to additional business for the company’s Total Audience Measurement series. This includes Digital Ad and Digital Content Ratings.
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Total Audience Measurement will track any video view, on every platform and format -- as well as how many people see the advertising, whether those ads appear in a linear stream or are dynamically inserted into programs.
Nielsen audio business declined 6.9%, while its Marketing Effectiveness business-- the marketing ROI, enterprise marketing platform -- grew 31.3%.
Overall, Nielsen net income grew 61% to $254 million -- 84.1% on a constant currency basis.
Todd Juenger, senior media analyst at Bernstein Research, says Nielsen’s financial results were overly positive: “We don't know what holes the bears could possibly poke in this report... We believe Total Audience -- and the very likely prospect that the industry will, soon, signal movement to a new currency, which will be provided by Nielsen -- will significantly alleviate that concern.”