Paramount, Nielsen Strike New Measurement Deal

by Wayne Friedman , February 3, 2025

Ending a stalemate that started back in October -- and just in time for the TV’s upfront advertising selling season -- Paramount Global and Nielsen have signed a multi-year measurement agreement, effective immediately.

The deal will reach across all broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. Financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the agreement, Paramount has licensed new Nielsen services -- Advanced Audiences, Big Data + Panel, Ad-Supported Streaming Platform Ratings, Nielsen One Ads for Connected Television, and Nielsen latest national out-of-home expanded service. Out of home service now represents 100% of the U.S. contiguous television population.

The former Paramount-Nielsen deal expired on October 1, 2024. Paramount said at the time that Nielsen's costs as a percentage of the company's advertising revenue have “quintupled” over significant parts of its business.

In addition, it said, Nielsen's proposed fees exceed the total ad revenue of the network being measured in some instances.

In its place, Paramount said, it was using VideoAmp as a third-party measuring service. In early January of this year, Paramount said it had renewed its VideoAmp deal-- where the service has demographic and advanced audience measurement data for 40 million U.S. households.

In 2019, Paramount Global’s CBS Corp. went through a similar dispute tied to pricing.

In January 2025, Nielsen was accredited for Big Data + Panel measurement, following its November 2024 announcement of its accreditation for a first-party live streaming solution.

TV's upfront advertising selling season begins in the spring and extends into summer.

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3 comments about "Paramount, Nielsen Strike New Measurement Deal".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 3, 2025 at 4:32 p.m.
Is anyone who knows how things work in the media busiess really surprised by this news. I'm not.
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William Abbott from GAC Media, February 3, 2025 at 10:14 p.m.

Not surprised in the least. Nielsen continues to pull the wool over the eyes of advertisers with sub-par methodolgy and sample size. One would think clients would know better and act accordingly, but the old adage "It's a "C" Business" is unfortuantely true in this case.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 4, 2025 at 9:02 a.m.

But William, the new Nielsen service will use set usage ratings from tens of millions of homes so how can you say it's duping anybody by using a small sample. As for advertisers caring about the methodology, most are satisfied that the findings are reasonably accurate and nobody expects 100% perfect findings from any supplier.

So far, no one has demonstrated that Nielsen's ratings are way off the mark---that is a show which attains an average minute "audience" of 4,000,000 really reached only 1,200, 000 viewers., etc. Moreover, if advertisers really cared about TV ratings why aren't they clamoring for the inclusion of attentiveness measures as a standard element in the design? In short, we are getting what the sellers, who do 80% of the funding, want---namely the biggest numbers possible.