• by Wayne Friedman , March 1, 2021

Roku has agreed to acquire Nielsen’s Advanced Video advertising business -- which includes Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition and dynamic ad-insertion technologies.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal would push Roku’s ability to expand its efforts with advertisers in addressable advertising -- which provides better targeting and measurement than traditional TV-video.

“With this acquisition of Nielsen advanced advertising division, we will be adding advertising on traditional TV,” says Louqman Parampath, vp of product management -- advertising at Roku.

Parampath says it will be make arrangements with TV programmers to replace advertising inventory with addressable advertising. Details will be forthcoming, he tells Television News Daily. Roku already has advertising share arrangements with TV network owners of premium streaming apps that run on the Roku platform.

The agreement also includes a long-term commercial agreement for Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings.

Specifically, for Roku’s media sales and ad-buying platform, OneView, the deal will integrate “natively” with Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings for advertisers.

The two companies also say the deal will include a strategic partnership to integrate Nielsen's advertising and content measurement products into the Roku platform.

For Nielsen, the deal would push its advanced Nielsen One cross-media measurement platform. Scott Brown, general manager of audience measurement for Nielsen, stated measuring advertising and content on all Roku devices “will accelerate the path to a single, de-duplicated cross-media currency.”

"This is major proof towards how we are prioritizing that strategy,” says Brown in speaking with TND. 

In turn, Nielsen will benefit from Roku’s large household footprint. Roku is one of the top set top box/smart TV app platforms, with some 50 million monthly active U.S. users.

Now Nielsen will have access to nearly 100 million smart TVs and digital devices. This encompasses, Roku, and other deals made with Vizio, Dish Network, and DirecTV. Nielsen already measures Roku ad inventory across its streaming inventory. 

Brown says the deal will also natively integrate measurement into the Roku platform for content. “It’s a full integration. Their data sources across streaming are already part of our measurement, and looking to grow into content as well as the live, linear dynamic ads that they will be taking on."