TNS Acquires Cymfony, Adds To Orchestra Competing With Nielsen

U.S. operation of U.K.-based media research giant TNS are emerging as a potential rival to Nielsen's ever expending control over the U.S. media and marketing research marketplace. In its latest move, TNS' TNS Media Intelligence unit, which already competes with Nielsen's Monitor-Plus division in competitive ad tracking and media expenditure monitoring, has struck a deal to acquire Cymfony, the chief competitor to Nielsen BuzzMetrics in the burgeoning marketplace for measuring online buzz, word-of-mouth and social media.

The move marks an expansion for TNS MI, which already had been moving beyond simple data aggregation into deeper analysis of media data trends, and signals the growing influence of the Internet in the dialogue between marketers and consumers.

The move also looks to flank Nielsen on one of its most promising areas of research expansion, even as TNS begins planting seeds that could put it into direction competition with Nielsen's core business in the United States: TV audience measurement.

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For more than a year, TNS' TNS Media Research unit has been striking deals with cable system operators to begin developing new audience measurement services derived from empirical data on TV usage patterns processed through digital set-top devices. TNS MR has begun taking steps to commercialize some of those services, and it recently hired a key Nielsen executive, Jeff Sohinki, as its director of business development. Sohinki had been senior vice president of Nielsen's local cable division.

The moves come as another Nielsen rival, erinMedia, has put the brakes on its efforts to roll out a similar digital set-top-based TV audience measurement system until it feels it can compete openly with Nielsen. erinMedia recently announced a plan to lay off all but its most senior management team and to cease operations pending regulatory relief of the outcome of a federal antitrust suit scheduled for an early 2008 trial.

erinMedia's and TNS' moves come as Nielsen announced the launch of Nielsen DigitalPlus, its own unit to begin developing audience measurement services derived from digital set-top data.

While Nielsen dominates TV audience measurement in the U.S., its chief rival in overseas markets is TNS.

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