January 25, 2023
Nielsen Experiences Exodus In Audience Measurement Communications Team
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 7, 2022
Nielsen, which lost two of its top audience-measurement executives last year, has also lost the majority of the division’s communications department.
Since the beginning of the new year, two of the top members of its communications team -- Salvatore Tuzzeo and Michael Receno -- have left, joining Gorki De Los Santos, who left in May 2021 to join the communications team at LinkedIn.
De Los Santos had been senior director of communications for U.S. media at Nielsen.
Last week, Google announced that Receno has joined its global communications and public affairs department as the communications lead for advertising/buying platforms and connected TV.
Tuzzeo has left as head audience measurement communications at Nielsen for an as-yet-undisclosed new job.
The communications department exodus happens as Nielsen prepares for the rollout of its Nielsen One cross-platform measurement system this year, and follows a year in which two senior executives – Scott Brown and Kelly Abcarian – left for Experian and NBC Universal, respectively.
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Joe, where I hail from, the term "communications" refers to what was once called public relations, which makes sense considering the bad press that Nielsen has earned over the past few years over the TV networks' campaign to punish Nielsen for its ratings "understatement" in 2020 and pressure it into supplying device usage based numbers for their digital media "audiences" as fast as possible. So, the "communications" execs at Nielsen may have been unhappy or, maybe, got some of the blame for the mini debacle. This does not mean that the folks who run the actual measurement operation are leaving---though it is hoped that they will be more open and responsive to fair and legitimate outside critcism.