STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports said its Super Bowl coverage Feb. 8 set an all-time media record for peak viewing, with 137.8 million watching in the second quarter as the Seattle Seahawks led the New England Patriots 6-0.

The Seahawks’ 29-13 victory over the Patriots averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, based on the official live-plus-same-day Nielsen Big Data + Panel data. It ranked as the second-most watched show in U.S. history, behind last February’s Super Bowl on Fox.

This year’s Super Bowl was also the most-watched show in the history of NBCUniversal, which celebrates 100 years of NBC in 2026.

“The Super Bowl and the NFL once again delivered a blockbuster audience across the NBC broadcast network, Peacock, and Telemundo, and provided an unprecedented lead-in to our Primetime in Milan coverage,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella saids. “The Super Bowl and the Olympics are the two most powerful events in the world, and we salute our talented production, tech, and announce teams who delivered best-in-class presentations for our viewers, stations and partners.”

In addition, Telemundo delivered the most-watched Super Bowl in the history of U.S. Spanish-language television, averaging 3.3 million viewers. Telemundo’s audience peaked during the halftime show, with an average of 4.8 million viewers—the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in Spanish-language TV history.

The halftime show also set a number of records.

Total social consumption (inclusive of fans, owned platforms, broadcast partners, influencers, etc.) of the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show starring Bad Bunny set a record of 4 billion views after the first 24 hours, up 137% year over year, per Ripple Analytics.

Over 55% of all NFL social views of the halftime show came from international markets.

The three most-viewed NFL social posts in history are now Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show clips. In total, these clips have been viewed for more than 115 years on social media platforms:

• “Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love”—@NFL on Instagram had 179 million views, most viewed clip on NFL Social ever with more than half (54%) of views coming from outside the U.S.
• Bad Bunny Listing Countries Before Spiking Football—@NFL on Instagram had 168 million, the second most-watched clip on NFL social ever with 68% of views coming from outside the U.S.
• Bad Bunny Listing Countries Before Spiking Football—@NFL on TikTok had 100 million views; people have spent a combined 53-plus years watching this clip already; 60% of the viewership is female, 62% comes from outside the United States; 91% of viewers under 35; 36% under 25.

In addition, the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET in the U.S. Full global viewership for the halftime show will be available early next week.

Apple also reported that immediately following the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, Bad Bunny listens on Apple Music were up 7 times. “DtMF,” “BAILE INoLVIDABLE,” and “Tití Me Preguntó” were the most-streamed songs immediately after the show. Other Apple Music notables from the Halftime Show include:

In the hours following his performance, Bad Bunny’s Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Set List playlist became the most-played Set List on Apple Music.

• The day after Super Bowl LX, Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS landed on the album charts in 155 countries, reaching the Top 10 in 128 countries and claiming the #1 spot in 46 countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Germany, France and Spain.
• Following his appearance in the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, Bad Bunny also occupied nearly a quarter of the Daily Top 100 Global chart, with 24 songs in the Top 100, 9 songs in the Top 25, and 6 songs in the Top 10, including “DtMF,” which was the #1 song.
• 6 of the 24 songs re-entered the Daily Top 100 Global chart for the first time since at least February 2025, and his single with Cardi B, “I Like It,” re-entered the chart for the first time since January 2020.

The popularity of the Super Bowl also helped NBC’s coverage of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Following the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation on the field at Levi’s Stadium, Super Bowl play-by-play voice Mike Tirico hosted “Primetime in Milan,” which featured Lindsey Vonn’s downhill run, and gold-medal-winning performances by Breezy Johnson in the downhill and Team USA in the team figure skating event at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

Sunday’s “Primetime in Milan” and “Milan Prime” presentations averaged 42 million viewers, marking NBCUniversal’s largest Winter Games audience since Day 2 of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics (a span of 53 event days) and an increase of 73% over the corresponding 2022 Beijing Olympics show (24.3 million), which also followed the Super Bowl.

In addition, Sunday was Peacock’s best day ever in terms of both reach and hours streamed, and featured the post-Super Bowl debut of “The Burbs,” which was the highest day-one Peacock original debut ever.

More detailed viewership metrics will be available from Nielsen later this week.

BRISTOL, Conn.—ESPN is reporting data showing a strong start to its 2025-26 NBA regular season, with its first 21 games through Christmas Day producing the second-highest NBA viewing levels the network has ever seen.

According to Nielsen Big Data Plus Panel, the NBA on ESPN networks is averaging 2.6 million, up 35% from last season.

ESPN said viewership for the 2025-26 regular season trails only the 2010-11 campaign. That ranking excludes the 2011-12 and 2020-21 seasons, which were shortened by a player lockout and the pandemic, respectively, and had nontraditional schedules.

ESPN’s coverage of the NBA has also delivered significant year-over-year growth in key demographics this season. Through 21 games, viewership among P2-17 is up 45%, while viewership among women is up 47%. Additionally, Hispanic viewership is up 37%.

Overall, ESPN networks have carried seven of the top 10 most-watched NBA games this season according to Nielsen, including all five Christmas games – three of which averaged more than 6 million viewers for the first time ever.

The data is important for the league, which negotiated significant increases in media rights in 2024 for a new round of contracts with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Prime Video that began with the 2025-26 season. Those deals totaled $76 billion for media rights over an 11 year period.

ESPN has also generated substantial viewership for its NBA studio programming this season. Through Christmas, TNT Sports import “Inside the NBA” is averaging 1.2 million viewers across ESPN and ABC. “NBA Countdown” is averaging 582,000 viewers so far this season, up 20% from last year’s regular-season average. In addition, “NBA Today,“ ESPN’s weekday studio offering, is averaging 361,000 viewers this season, an increase of 26% from this time last year.

NEW YORK—“Pass the turkey.” “Pass the stuffing.” “Pass the cranberry sauce.” All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and friends.

This year—like most in recent memory—another familiar plea was surely heard around millions of TVs across the country: “Pass the football!”

Nielsen is out today with its ratings for the week of Nov. 24-30, which includes Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Day, and NFL broadcast coverage put up big viewing numbers.

CBS coverage of the Kansas City Chiefs-Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game was the most-watched NFL regular-season telecast in league history with 57.23 million viewers, Nielsen said.

Fox’s coverage of the early Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions game, simulcast on Tubi, garnered 47.7 million viewers, making it Fox’s most-watched regular-season game ever, it said.

NBC’s Thanksgiving Cincinnati Bengals-Baltimore Ravens game, simulcast on Peacock and Telemundo, saw 28.4 million viewers tune in, making it the most-watched Thanksgiving-night NFL game in league history, Nielsen said.

The following day, an average of 16.33 million viewers streamed the Chicago Bears-Philadelphia Eagles game on Prime Video, making it the most-watched Black Friday Football game to date, Nielsen said.

In all, NFL games secured eight of the top 12 slots across networks and distributors, including Fox, NBC, CBS, Prime Video, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.

College sports also proved to be popular, with Fox’s Ohio State-Michigan game telecast averaging 18.42 million viewers, the biggest college football audience this season, it said.

College hoops broke viewing records on Thanksgiving Day as well. Duke-Arkansas on CBS was the most-watched regular-season college basketball game on any network since the 1992-93, season with 6.8 million viewers.

Michigan-North Carolina was the most-watched college basketball game in Fox history, with 6.5 million viewers, it said.

Overall, college football occupied 12 of the top 25 slots across five different networks, including three games with more than 10 million viewers, Nielsen said.

ESPN coverage of the Minnesota Timberwolves-Oklahoma City Thunder NBA game placed No. 24 in the top 25, and the 2025 National Dog Show on NBC and Peacock averaged 12.8 million viewers to take the No. 11 slot.

NEW YORK—NFL and college football coverage, the MLB postseason and the new fall broadcast-TV season contributed to major gains for traditional media companies and a reshuffling of media distributor rankings in October, according to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge.

The top three media companies remained unchanged from September to October. YouTube led with 12.9% of total TV viewing. Disney followed with 11.4% and NBCUniversal with 8.6%. Time spent watching YouTube was up 4% in October (0.3 share points), driven by double-digit growth among kids and teens with many schools closed for various fall breaks.

Disney achieved the largest share increase in October and added 0.7 share points as its overall viewership climbed 7% month-over-month. The media company saw balanced growth across its linear and streaming platforms. ESPN and ABC affiliates each saw a 9% viewing increase, while Disney Streaming (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Unlimited) contributed a 7% bump. ABC affiliates and Disney Streaming each added 0.3 share points, representing the largest share-growth contributions, it said.

Hallmark Channel posted the largest increase in watch time in October as viewership surged 11% compared to September. Hallmark’s growth was powered by an uptick in movie viewership, which led to a gain of 0.1 point to represent 1.0% of TV this month. Hallmark climbed from 13th to 12th in the distributor rankings, according to the Media Distributor Gauge.

The influence of live sports and linear programming caused movement elsewhere on the chart. Fox and Paramount mirrored Disney’s 7% monthly growth, and each climbed one spot in the distributor rankings, finishing with 8.4% and 8.2% of TV, respectively. Fox was propelled by the MLB playoffs, with significant lifts from FS1 and Fox broadcast affiliates. FS1 recorded a massive 285% viewing bump on the strength of American League Championship Series coverage and contributed 0.4 points to Fox’s 0.5-point increase, and Fox affiliates rose 12% driven by the start of the World Series (Games 1 and 2), college football’s Big Noon Saturday and NFL games on Sundays.

Similar to Disney, Paramount saw increases across both linear and streaming in October, driving its growth. CBS affiliates were up 13%, and Paramount+ was up 8.3%. Although NFL games represented the top three programs for CBS this month, the network also owned the top three nonsports programs across the entire broadcast category with “Tracker,” “60 Minutes” and “Matlock.”

Warner Bros. Discovery also benefited from the MLB playoffs in October, adding 0.2 points month-over-month to capture 5.6% of total TV watch-time. Exclusive coverage of the Dodgers-Brewers four-game National League Championship Series (NLCS) drove a 93% viewing increase on TBS.

The October 2025 interval spanned four weeks, from Sept. 29 through Oct. 26. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

More information is available on the Nielsen website.

The NBA has released encouraging viewing and social media data that the beginnings of its $76 billion deal with NBC/Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN are paying off for its broadcast rights partners.

More than 60 million viewers watched NBA games during the first month of the regular season, the NBA reported, the highest first-month viewing in 15 years if you exclude the 2011-12 season, which opened on Christmas Day.

The NBA also reported record levels of social-media engagement, with more than 30 billion views across social media platforms operated by the league and others.

In addition, sales at NBAStore.com were up more than 20% and subscriptions to out-of-market package NBA League Pass were up 10%. Time spent viewing games on the NBA app was also up 8%.

In ye olde days of traditional television, when U.S. TV viewing options were limited to ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, Nielsen’s paper diaries were sufficient for tracking viewership and providing useful audience data to advertisers.

Today, everything has changed. “The television landscape has experienced a massive amount of change over the past several years,” said David Levy, CEO of OpenAP, an advanced advertising company jointly owned by the Big Four commercial broadcast networks and focused on video, TV and cross-platform audience targeting and measurement. “Viewership has bifurcated across screens, with CTV [connected TV] and streaming growing to become as large a viewership channel as linear. Because of that, legacy measurement models fell short of accurately measuring audiences.”

To address these changes, audience measurement firms such as Nielsen, OpenAP and Samba TV are using new models to capture accurate, actionable viewing data. These models are meant to provide advertisers with information that matters as much today as it did in the past: Who is watching what, and what are the best ways to reach them with commercials?

The Hybrid Model
Because today’s viewers watch video in so many different ways, the logical way to measure them accurately is across all of their viewing platforms. This is known as the “hybrid model” of TV audience measurement.

“Hybrid measurement models leverage large-scale device-level datasets (big data) such as Return Path Data (RPD) and Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to augment the granularity of analyses supported and the accuracy of measurement solutions,” said Sean Breedlove, OpenAP’s vice president of measurement and analytics. “Panel data sources are used to calibrate big datasets, adjusting for biases, filling known gaps in coverage and estimating person-level viewership to ensure that the resultant measurement is representative of the market.”

Nielsen is using the hybrid model today. “Changing consumer habits have led to fragmentation,” said a Nielsen spokesperson. “It’s widely agreed upon that hybrid measurement, like our Big Data + Panel measurement, is the way forward to unlock the most accurate view of what people are watching across platforms. Our Big Data + Panel measurement is based on over 45 million households and 75 million devices (from Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, Roku and Vizio) and validated by our person-level panel of over 100,000 real people and 42,000 homes.”

The Role of AI
Thanks to their ability to process and analyze massive data, AI and machine learning (ML) are playing a crucial role in enhancing the accuracy and speed of TV viewership measurement. The technologies are also adding new kinds of measurement to the mix.

For example, “Samba AI enables the TV itself to detect scenes, objects, brands, interactions and even sentiment of what’s happening onscreen without needing to send data to the cloud,” said Alyson Sprague, Samba TV’s vice president of measurement products. “The result is real-time contextual analysis that powers brand-safe advertising, AI-generated metadata and content-aware experiences, while reinforcing user privacy and ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted viewing experience,” she said.

Nielsen agrees. “AI can help the industry analyze and uncover new patterns and trends and ways of thinking about data,” the spokesperson said. “Nielsen processes petabytes of data and machine learning helps us carry out methodological research, accuracy checks and corrections at a scale never before possible. But AI models are only as good as the data that is used to train them and publishers and marketers should be diligent that the underlying data is a trusted truth set that accounts for gaps, biases and inaccuracies.”

Getting More From Audience Measurement
Modern TV audience measurement is moving beyond the traditional metrics of reach and frequency to focus on the concepts of “advanced audiences” and “outcomes.” As used by Nielsen, advanced audiences provide demographics-based insights into viewers’ purchasing history and their intent to buy specific products; their lifestyle behaviors, attitudes and interests; their economic status (which influences purchasing decisions); and their race/ethnicity identifications.

“The rise in advanced audiences is driven by the need to reach relevant audiences beyond just age and gender,” said the Nielsen spokesperson. “Our advanced audiences are cross-platform and backed by our Big Data + Panel measurement. On the outcomes front, we launched our Outcomes Marketplace, which is aimed at providing a combined view of reach, brand lift and sales lift to help better inform media strategies and show the full-funnel impact of ad campaigns.

“Our initial partner Realeyes gives clients an understanding of creative attention and emotive response to ads, and we will be announcing other major partners soon,” the spokesperson added.

Tangible Results and the Future of Measurement
Taken as a whole, the new audience measurement approaches described above are helping advertisers cope with the explosion of video viewing sources and styles, while providing them with additional options for precisely targeting ads to the most receptive consumers.

“These new approaches enable advertisers and content producers to monitor both the scale of viewership and audience resonance of their ad creatives and content on a more real-time basis, allowing them to make ad creative and media content optimization decisions more fluidly based on in-market consumer response,” Breedlove said. In the future, “TV measurement will become increasingly audience-based, rather than relying on age/gender demographics that have traditionally been leveraged for linear TV transactions.”

“What matters across the board are the outcomes brands are trying to achieve,” Samba TV’s Sprague said. This is where a flexible, innovative approach to TV audience measurement matters, because it empowers advertisers to deliver better results to their sponsors. A case in point: “In a recent study with Amazon Ads, campaigns that combined traditional TV with Amazon Ads drove a 2 times lift in awareness and a 5.4 times lift in purchase intent,” she said. “That is the kind of outcome-focused impact we are working to deliver across industries.”

As TV and streaming media outlets pay record prices for NFL rights, those big bets are paying off with record viewing levels.

In a post on X, the NFL reported that average viewers per game is running at 18.58 million, the highest average through week five since 2010. It is also the second-highest average on record, the league reported.

Those viewing levels through the first give weeks are up 8% compared to 2024 and up 9% from 2023 levels.

More specifically, below are the viewing figures for the top 10 games.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Three months after Nielsen announced that, for the first time in history, more U.S. viewers watched TV via streaming than via traditional broadcast, Roku confirmed the trend is continuing, announcing that U.S. viewers spent more time streaming content on Roku-powered devices than watching traditional broadcast television for the third consecutive month.

According to Nielsen data, streaming on Roku-powered devices accounted for 21.4% of all TV viewing time in the U.S. during July, surpassing broadcast TV’s 18.4% share. This continues a trend from May and June, when streaming on the Roku platform also outpaced broadcast. Roku’s share of TV viewing has grown steadily throughout 2025—up 14% year-over-year—reflecting not just a shift in technology, but how audiences discover and engage with the entertainment that shapes today’s culture, Roku claimed.

Roku remains the leading destination for streaming overall, by usage and TV unit sales. The Roku OS powers streaming on smart TVs and devices in over half of all internet-enabled households in the U.S.

“In broadcast’s heyday, TV guides directed us to ‘must-see’ television and the pop cultural moments we shared,” said Charlie Collier, President, Roku Media. “Today, the streaming platform is the guide, and the moments shaping culture are happening on Roku. We’re the ‘lead-in’ to TV for millions of viewers’ and partners’ journeys, connecting them to the content, live events, and experiences that define the streaming era.”

NEW YORK—Nielsen and Vizio have announced a multi-year agreement that provides the audience measurement firm with viewership information from the set maker’s Inscape Smart TV data.

Nielsen, which began licensing Inscape for national addressable measurement in 2021, now has the right to integrate Vizio’s Inscape data in both its local and national audience-measurement solutions.

The deal also includes a period of exclusivity for data gathered from an expanded roster of 400 local stations that will be processed by Inscape’s systems.

Vizio’s Inscape data captures viewing data from millions of connected TV devices (including cable box, set-top box , DVR, etc.) and streaming environments. Automatic content recognition (ACR) data provides scale, granularity and timely insights, enabling greater understanding of what is being watched in millions of U.S. households by measuring on-screen content regardless of source.

Through this agreement, Nielsen can now add Big Data from a pool of about 20 million smart TVs, a key enhancement that includes coverage for 400 stations across local U.S. markets that currently include Local People Meter, Set Meter and Portable People Meter panels.

“At Nielsen, we are committed to innovating as consumers further embrace new ways to watch their favorite programs,” said Michelle Gelman, global head of Nielsen’s Content and Syndicated Products. “Inscape’s ACR data from one of the leading Smart TV manufacturers will help us drive value to our clients and, ultimately, help them drive ROI as they seek to reach their audience.”

Added Vizio chief revenue and engagement Officer Mike O’Donnell said: “As viewing trends shift and audiences fragment across different services, Inscape has been at the forefront of powering products that are better for the consumer experience and bringing greater transparency and scale to the measurement sector. We’re excited to work with Nielsen and for the inclusion of our opted-in viewing data in Nielsen’s services as we continue to help the entire TV marketplace evolve.”

Nielsen’s panels will be used to validate what is missing in big data sets, including complete representation, over-the-air inclusion, validation of diverse representation, understanding when the TV is on or off, and person-level measurement. Nielsen will add Big Data to its national TV measurement beginning in September, a major step towards the launch of Nielsen One, the forthcoming single, deduplicated solution for cross-media measurement.

NEW YORK and ATLANTA—Nielsen and Cox Media Group (CMG) have inked a multiyear renewal agreement for television and audio measurement services covering CMG's local television and radio stations.

As part of the agreement, CMG will continue to utilize a comprehensive suite of Nielsen measurement services to sell advertising.

CMG’s businesses include 14 television brands in 9 markets. The TV portfolio includes multiple primary affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo and MyNetworkTV, as well as several independent stations.

CMG has 50 radio stations delivering multiple content genres in 10 markets and numerous streaming and digital platforms.

More information is available at coxmediagroup.com.

RESTON, Va.—Comscore has named Frank Friedman as its new chief data and analytics officer and head of measurement.

Friedman, who has a career spanning agency, research, publishing, and client leadership, will oversee the company’s data governance, drive currency adoption efforts, and develop tailored measurement playbooks for a variety of customers, Comscore said.

Friedman comes to Comscore from station group E.W. Scripps Co., where he pushed for new approaches to measurement and negotiated its first agreement with Comscore. He advocated for the consolidation of data organization into a single holistic group for both National and Local divisions, and worked at Publicis Groupe on improving efficiencies in planning and buying, Comscore said.

“I am delighted to welcome Frank Friedman to the executive team at Comscore as we navigate the next frontier of measurement for our customers and the industry more broadly,” Comscore CEO Jon Carpenter said. “Frank has consistently been at the forefront of challenging convention and implementing disciplined strategies to drive change, and we are excited to bring his perspective to our organization during this stage of our transformation.”

Committed to advancing data analytics, rigorous measurement governance, and fostering collaboration, Friedman has also held pivotal board and committee positions with industry bodies and key organizations including the Media Rating Council (MRC), Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and Video Advertising Bureau (VAB).

“I’ve been a cheerleader for change from every side of the ecosystem to help solve the industry’s toughest challenges,” Friedman said. “In previous roles, I leveraged the power of data to disrupt and drive growth, now in joining Comscore, I’m thrilled to shape the next era of what is possible in omnichannel measurement at such a pivotal moment for the ecosystem.”

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports said 2024 was its best year in terms of ratings since 2016. Its success was fueled by the Paris Summer Olympics as well as its NFL coverage, both on Peacock and broadcast.

Collectively, these events, among others, gave NBC Sports its most-watched year since 2016, with more than 400 billion minutes (or more than 7 billion hours) consumed across NBCUniversal platforms.

NBC Sports delivered 32 shows in 2024 which topped 20 million viewers in Total Audience Delivery (TAD) across multiple platforms. Over the more than 7,000 hours of coverage it provided for its marquee event, the Summer Games in Paris, NBCU registered a TAD of 30.4 million viewers across the combined live Paris Prime (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) periods—up 80% from the Tokyo Summer Olympics (16.9 million), according to official data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

The NBC broadcast network extended its streak to 152 consecutive Summer Olympics nights as primetime’s No. 1 show. Led by Peacock, 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage were streamed—up 40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).

NBC also used its NFL coverage to boost its broadcast ratings and also to juice its Peacock streaming subscriber base. Although it drew negative reactions at the time, Peacock’s exclusive AFC wild-card game on Jan. 14 became the most-streamed live event in U.S. history at the time, with 32.1 million total viewers tuning in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Miami Dolphins, according to Nielsen. That record was surpassed later in the year by the 74 million who livestreamed the Nov. 15 Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Netflix.

The network’s “Sunday Night Football” finished the 2023-2024 TV season as primetime’s No. 1 TV show in all key metrics for the 13th consecutive year.

Other sports standouts included the 16.7 million viewers who tuned into the Kentucky Derby on May 4, the largest audience for the Triple Crown horse race since 1989. In soccer, NBC Sports’ presentation of the English Premier League’s first match week of the 2024-25 season was the most-watched opening weekend on record in the United States, NBC Sports said. It averaged 820,000 viewers across six matches live on NBC/Peacock, USA Network, and NBC Sports Digital platforms from Friday, Aug. 16-Sunday, Aug. 18.

NEW YORK—Nielsen and TikTok have signed an agreement that, for the first time, will allow advertisers and agencies to directly compare campaign performance on the social media platform to other publishers across all screens via Nielsen One.

The integration provides a holistic view of campaign performance across publishers and platforms, the companies said, enabling cross-media measurement so that advertisers and agencies can compare ad performance on TikTok across all screens, including digital, connected TV (CTV) and linear. With a better understanding of TikTok’s contribution to audience reach, buyers can build more effective media plans, connect with the right audience and improve return on media investment, they said.

The integration with TikTok uses clean-room technology and Nielsen’s industry-leading panels and data assets to provide independent and verified reporting of demographic data for campaign measurement in Nielsen One, the companies said.

“In the dynamic video landscape, brands need to extend their reach beyond traditional channels. TikTok’s commitment to providing diverse measurement tools, including our integration with Nielsen One, enables advertisers to understand and leverage cross-media engagement, driving meaningful results,” Jorge Ruiz, global head of marketing science at TikTok, said.

Added Nielsen general manager of audience measurement Ameneh Atai: “Amidst a fragmented ecosystem, advertisers are increasingly challenged to understand and substantiate the incremental value of each element of their media plan. Integrating TikTok into Nielsen One unlocks a significant piece of the puzzle, providing much-needed clarity and ultimately helping advertisers make the most informed decisions as they plan and measure their cross-platform and publisher campaigns.”

Nielsen’s measurement is powered by person-level data from panels of more than 1.2 million individuals and backed by the scale of the industry’s largest Big Data footprint and broadest coverage across digital, linear, streaming and CTV, Nielsen said.

NEW YORK—In the battle for viewing among the big TV and media players, Fox had a superb October, earning an 8.4% share of total TV viewing in Nielsen’s October Media Distributor Gauge. That was its highest share of TV viewing for the since Nielsen began releasing the data in November of 2023.

During October, Fox also notched the largest monthly increase among all reported media distributors, with overall viewing up 16% in October (+1.1 share points of TV viewing).

In the October rankings of TV viewing share by media company, The Walt Disney Co. was on top at 11.7%, followed by YouTube (10.6% of total TV viewing), NBCUniversal (9.2%), Paramount (9.2%) and Fox in fifth place. Sports and news programming drove increases in viewing for Fox, Disney and others during the month.

October’s TV landscape featured a wide range of compelling events that drew large audiences across broadcast and cable channels, leading multiplatform media distributors like Fox to thrive on the strength of diverse content offerings, Nielsen said in its explanation of the data.

On top of last month’s 69% bump in viewing, Fox broadcast affiliates were up another 16% in October, driven by sporting events including the NFL, college football, the Major League Baseball postseason and Games 1 and 2 of the World Series. From a cable-network perspective, election-related coverage boosted Fox News Channel to a 12% viewing increase in October, and FS1 shot up over 260%, due primarily to its National League Championship Series games. Fox also benefited from a 2.5% lift in Tubi viewing.

Disney also took advantage of its multiplatform capabilities and repeated as the top media company in October, adding 0.4 share points from September to notch 11.7% of overall TV. Disney was buoyed by a 7% increase in viewing to ABC broadcast affiliates as a result of NFL and college football, as well as the consistent performance of ABC World News Tonight With David Muir. Meanwhile, an 8% bump in viewership to ESPN, driven by both football and baseball, was the largest gain among Disney’s cable networks.

Among the 14 companies reported in the Media Distributor Gauge, nine of them exhibited monthly shifts of plus or minus 0.1 share point or less in October. An exception, however, was The Roku Channel, which tallied the second largest monthly increase among distributors with a 12% gain over September to lift the FAST service to a platform-best 1.8% share of TV.

The measurement month of October included four weeks: Sept. 30 through Oct. 27. Nielsen measurement weeks run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—CBS has declared that it will finish the 2023-24 season as "America's Most-Watched Network" in primetime for the 16th consecutive season. 

CBS reported that it is currently averaging 5.59 million viewers, +580,000 ahead of second place NBC (5.01m), +1.30 million viewers ahead of third place ABC (4.29m) and +2.24 million viewers ahead of fourth place FOX (3.35m). All numbers are according to Nielsen live plus 7-day ratings through April 21.

The primetime win for the 2023-24 season, also breaks broadcast television's longest winning streak on record, also previously held by CBS, from 1955-1970, and marks CBS' 21st win in the last 22 years, the broadcaster reported.

The network is also poised to win the season in the key demos including A25-54, A18-49 and A18-34, CBS predicted. 

In the 2023-24 season, CBS also noted that it currently has 13 of the top 20 broadcast series. The Network launched three new series (“Tracker”, “Elsbeth” and “NCIS: Sydney”), all of which are the top new series of the season. CBS is also home to television's four most-watched entertainment programs, the top four comedies and remains the #1 broadcast network in primetime among African American viewers.

The network also reported that viewers have watched more than 456 billion minutes of CBS entertainment, news and sports programming across the Network, Paramount+, Pluto TV and the CBS app from Jan. 1-April 21, 2024. This is +30% higher than the total time spent with Netflix originals and +231% higher than with originals on all other streaming competitors combined, CBS reported. 

The 456 billion minutes watched of CBS programming is up +5.8% from the same time period last year.

"Minutes watched give us an apples-to-apples comparison to measure viewership across broadcast networks and digital platforms. CBS continues to aggregate a mass multiplatform audience with the Network programming up nearly +6% compared to this time last year, which speaks to how the popularity of our programming continues to resonate with viewers," said Radha Subramanyam, chief research and analytics officer at CBS.

Approximately 1.1 million U.S. households watched the finals between the U.K. and Spain on Fox and Peacock last weekend, according to new numbers from Samba TV. That’s about 360,000 less than Team USA’s match against Sweden—which eliminated them from the competition—and over 3 million less than Team USA’s first match against Vietnam, which brought in 4.4M, according to Samba TV. 

Two factors affected ratings this year: Team USA’s relatively early exit from the competition as well as the TV schedule from the Australian-based host, which saw many matches played during the wee hours of the morning. After 36 games, the average Women’s World Cup viewership in the U.S. was 672,000, compared to the 2019 Women’s World Cup, which averaged just under 1 million at 968,000, a 36% decline, according to Sports TV Ratings expert Robert Seidman.

Team USA’s biggest TV draw was the World Cup Final rematch with  the Netherlands on July 26, which garnered just shy of 8 million viewers between Fox and Telemundo, making it the most-watched group stage game for a Women’s World Cup in U.S. history. That game was played in primetime at 9 p.m. ET.

In regards to demographics, the most interest in the tournament came from older millennial and Gen X households, Samba TV said.

NEW YORK—CNN’s controversial Republican Presidential Town Hall on May 10 with former president Donald Trump ranked #1 in cable news and #2 in all of cable behind the NBA Playoffs on TNT in both total viewers and adults 25-54, according to Nielsen figures supplied by CNN.  

The Town Hall in New Hampshire averaged 3.308 million total viewers compared to 1.446 million in the town hall time slot for Fox News and 1.398 for MSNBC. 

Among adults 25-54, CNN beat all cable news competitors with 781k, 458% more than Fox News’ 140k and a 388% advantage over MSNBC’s 160k.

Among adults aged 25 to 54, Wednesday’s event was CNN’s #1 single-candidate town hall since 2016 among adults 25-54 but was behind CNN’s 2020 Joe Biden Town Hall on September 17, 2020 among total viewers with 3.465 million, according to data from CNN.

Audience data from Fox News press department indicated that the May 10 CNN town hall audiences were lower than than five Fox News Channel Town Halls with former President Trump which delivered 5.1 million P2+ on June 25, 2020, 4.4 million P2+ on March 24, 2020, 4.2 million P2+ on March 5, 2020, 3.8 million P2+ on May 3, 2020 and 3.5 million P2+ million on June 30, 2021. 

On CNN’s Digital platforms, CNN’s Republican Presidential Town Hall with Former President Donald Trump streamed live, without requiring a cable log-in, on CNN.com’s homepage and across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android from 8 pm to 9:30 pm ET. It peaked with 149k concurrent viewers at 9:09 pm, the largest concurrent digital livestream audience for a CNN Election Town Hall since at least the 2020 cycle. The livestream generated nearly 1 million live video starts, CNN reported. 

Combining TV plus digital live streaming produced a combined average audience of 3.408 million total viewers. Digital viewing added a 3.0% lift to CNN’s TV P2+ average audience for the town hall, ranking 9th among all town halls on record. CNN coverage (8 pm to 9:09 pm ET) saw an average audience of 100k users live streaming the average minute of coverage (equivalent to the way TV ratings are calculated).

CNN also ranked #1 in prime time (8-11pm) on Wednesday among both total viewers and adults 25-54. Among total viewers, CNN had 2.293 million, +57% more than MSNBC’s 1.458 million and +36% more than Fox News’s 1.683 million. This marked CNN’s best performance in prime time since the 2022 Midterm Elections among total viewers on November 8 2022 with 2.608 million. 

Among adults 25-54, CNN averaged 510k, Fox News placed second with 189k and MSNBC was third with 157k. 

The event was significantly ahead of Trump’s last town hall appearance on CNN in 2016 in April 12, 2016, delivering +53% more total viewers (3.308 million vs. 2.168 million) and +35% more in the demo (781k vs. 579k), CNN reported.

NEW YORK—Paramount Global’s CBS research department has issued projections showing that CBS will finish the 2022-2023 season as "America's Most-Watched Network" in primetime for the 15th consecutive season. 

This ties broadcast television's longest winning streak on record, also held by CBS from 1955-1970, and will be CBS' 20th win in the last 21 years.

The Network has also been #1 in daytime for 37 straight years, #1 in late night for six consecutive years and is #1 among African American viewers, the network reported. 

CBS also reported that its winning season featured the #1 broadcast series/drama (“NCIS”), the top broadcast new series/drama (“Fire Country”), top comedy (“Young Sheldon”), top news program (“60 Minutes”) and 14 of the top 20 primetime series.

The Network is currently averaging 5.97 million viewers, +582,000 ahead of second place NBC (versus 5.39m), third place ABC (4.09m) and FOX (4.63m). All numbers are according to Nielsen most current ratings through Sunday, April 30.

In addition, CBS reported that it is the #1 broadcast network in primetime among African American viewers with eight of the top 10 most-watched series, two of the top three dramas and the top two comedies.

Initial figures from Samba TV indicate viewership for Super Bowl LVII was nearly flat when compared to ratings for the 2022 Super Bowl. 

The game—which is consistently the most watched TV event of the year—between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, notched a slight increase of approximately half a percentage point compared to 2022’s Super Bowl LVI. 

Overall, based on Samba TV’s analysis derived from its nationally weighted household panel, which pulls from over 25 million connected TVs in the U.S. measuring both linear and streaming TV consumption, 36.7 million households in the U.S. watched the Super Bowl this year compared to 36.5 million who tuned in last year. This number does not include any mobile consumption or out-of-home viewership.

“Super Bowl LVII had a number of historic firsts that combined to make this year’s big game the most watched since 2020 with over one in four American households tuning in. More than 36.5 million homes watched the Chief’s come-from-behind victory over the Eagles, surpassing last year’s viewership by nearly half a percent,” said Samba TV Founder and CEO Ashwin Navin.

Chief’s fans pushed Kansas City to become the highest over-indexing market in the U.S. in terms of viewership, surpassing the national average by 20%, Eagles’ hometown fans followed closely behind, with Philadelphia over-indexing the national average by 15%.

The halftime show featuring a solo performance by Rihanna drew a sizeable audience, but was down slightly from last year’s performance. Approximately 28.5 million households in the U.S. tuned in for the Super Bowl Halftime Show, compared to the 28.7 million that tuned in for last year’s show backed by Pepsi.

Samba TV also provided an advance look at its upcoming Super Bowl ad rankings that will be released later this week which analyze the top scoring ads from Sunday’s game in terms of overall household viewership. The Farmers Dog scored the #1 spot amongst all brand advertising commercials. 

“Farmers Dog broke the internet and our hearts with 60 seconds of pure joy taking millions of football fans along for a tear-filled journey to one of the sweetest and emotionally packed endings of any Super Bowl commercial we have seen in years. The ad not only captured massive social buzz, it won the Super Bowl ads race reaching more than 28 million homes,” said Navin.

“As we are seeing with almost all of linear television today, while the price of advertising continues to increase—in the case of the Super Bowl by nearly 10% per ad since last year alone — audience reach is not keeping up as this year’s slight year-over-year viewership increase demonstrates.”

In 2022, the NFL announced that an estimated 208 million Americans viewed Super Bowl LVI, based on a survey in collaboration with Nielsen, which is expected to release its own figures for Super Bowl LVII later this week. 

NEW YORK—Viewing for the first three games of the 2022 NBA Finals on ABC continues to outpace last year, averaging 11,777,000 viewers, which is up 28 percent from last year, according to Nielsen. 

Game 3 of the NBA Finals, in which the Boston Celtics defeated the Golden State Warriors 116-100, averaged 11,522,000 viewers, peaking with 13,245,000 viewers at 11:15 p.m. ET. 

Overall, NBA Finals game 3 was up 25 percent from game 3 in 2021, propelling ABC to win the night across all of television once again, including in every key demographic: M18-34, M18-49, M25-54, P18-34, P18-49 and P25-54.

NEW YORK—ABC and ESPN announced today that NBA Finals Game 1, in which the Boston Celtics defeated the Golden State Warriors 120-108, averaged nearly 12 million viewers (11,901,000) across ABC and ESPN2 on June 2. 

It was up 37 percent from last year’s Game 1, according to Nielsen.

Game 1 peaked with nearly 13 million viewers (12,963,000) at 10:45 p.m. ET and was the most-watched NBA Finals Game 1 in three years. It also propelled ABC to win the night across all of television – broadcast and cable – and in every key demo, including P18-34, P18-49, P25-54, M18-34, M18-49 and M25-54.

The broadcast generated a 19.6 rating in the Boston market, making it the highest-rated NBA game in the market since Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2018. 

In the San Francisco market, Game 1 drew a 22.5 rating, making it the highest-rated NBA game in the market since Game 6 of the NBA Finals in 2019.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has pushed back strongly against a Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) study that found Nielsen’s undercounting of audiences resulted in major losses for TV broadcasters totaling upwards of $700 million during a 16 month period.  

In its statement Nielsen said “We reviewed the information shared by the VAB today, and while we acknowledge the understatement in a portion of our National out-of-home audiences, we stand by our prior statements that the magnitude of the issue was very small for the majority of telecasts.”

The MRC, for its part, noted that the VAB has mischaracterized MRC's analysis of Nielsen's problems with undercounting audiences during the pandemic. 

"[The MRC] would like to correct a representation that was made concerning MRC in a report issued today by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) titled `Behind Billions of Lost TV Impressions,’” the MRC said. 

“The VAB report made several references to 'adjustment factors’ that were attributed to MRC, resulting from an analysis MRC conducted last year that concluded certain understatements to Nielsen’s ratings had occurred,” the group said. “In fact, MRC did not position these figures as `adjustment factors,’ nor did MRC recommend they be used in that manner; rather the figures MRC published in May 2021 were presented simply as estimates of ratings understatements that MRC believed occurred in the single month of February 2021. February 2021 was chosen as the subject of the analysis at the time because MRC believed it represented the period at which the potential COVID-related impacts to Nielsen’s panels were at their peak.”

NEW YORK—Newly released ratings for the 2021 NFL regular season highlighted once again just how important live sports are to broadcasters. In a period of generally declining audiences, the NFL regular season games averaged 17.1 million viewers on TV and digital, up 10% from the 2020 regular season and the highest average since 2015. 

The games also accounted for 48 of the top 50 TV shows during the 2021 regular season, NFL Media reported, with 370 billion total minutes consumed during the 2021 regular season, the second highest ever and up 18% over 2020. 

NFL games also accounted for all of the top 16 rated TV shows and 91 of the top 100. 

“Featuring incredible play on the field and close contests, the 2021 regular season proved to be one of the most exciting and exhilarating of all-time,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president and chief operating officer, NFL Media. “This year’s schedule, highlighted by an enhanced regular season featuring 17 games, gave our broadcast partners the ability to provide fans with more football and incredible matchups than ever. We look forward to a strong finish with the upcoming postseason and Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.”

One factor helping boost viewing was a record number of close games. During the 2021 NFL regular season, there were 34 games decided by a game-winning score on the final play – the most in a single season all-time – while 49 games were decided by a game-winning score in the final minute of regulation or overtime – tied for the most in a single season all-time, the NFL reported. 

Additionally, 175 games – 64% of all games – were within one score (eight points) in the fourth quarter – tied for the fourth-most all-time.

The top 10 NFL games during the 2021 regular season were:

• Las Vegas Raiders vs. Dallas Cowboys (Week 12, CBS) – 40.8 million
• Dallas Cowboys vs. Kansas City Chiefs (Week 11, FOX) – 28.7 million
• Cleveland Browns vs. Green Bay Packers (Week 16, FOX+NFLN) – 28.6 million
• Chicago Bears vs. Detroit Lions (Week 12, FOX) – 28.2 million
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. New England Patriots (Week 4, NBC) – 27.2 million
• Arizona Cardinals vs. Dallas Cowboys (Week 17, FOX) – 26.8 million
• Los Angeles Rams vs. Green Bay Packers (Week 12, FOX) – 25.2 million
• Dallas Cowboys vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Kickoff, NBC) – 25.2 million
• Green Bay Packers vs. Kansas City Chiefs (Week 9, FOX) – 25.0 million
• Dallas Cowboys vs. Los Angeles Chargers (Week 2, CBS) – 25.0 million

ARLINGTON, Va.—The Axios news site has pulled together an impressive amount of data about how consumers interacted with news content in 2021 and the results highlight major problems in the news business as it goes into 2022. Key trends include: social media interactions with news stories fell by 65% in 2021; primetime cable news viewers dropped by 36% at Fox News, CNN and MSNBC; news media app downloads slumped by 33% and visitors to news sites fell by 8% compared to 2020. 

“Given the ongoing decline in interest in news about COVID-19 and politics, it doesn't look like 2022 will be much better,” Axios reporters concluded. 

The analysis of data from NewsWhip, Apptopia, SimilarWeb and Nielsen by Axios also found that with “fewer singular storylines capturing America's collective attention, news consumption was more scattered and diverted to sports.”

An Associated Press report cited by Axios confirmed those conclusions. The AP reported that in “2021, weekday prime-time viewership dropped 38% at CNN, 34% at Fox News Channel and 25% at MSNBC,” and that “the decline was less steep but still significant at broadcast television evening newscasts” with ABC’s `World News Tonight’ and the `CBS Evening News’ down 12% and NBC’s “Nightly News,” down 14% the AP said citing Nielsen data. 

Axios also noted that app downloads for the top 12 mainstream publishers dropped 33%, according to data from Apptopi, with the biggest declines in the second half of the year. 

The AP reported that both the New York Times and the Washington Post saw significant declines, with “the number of unique visitors to the Post’s site was down 44% in November [2021] compared to November 2020, and down 34% at the Times,” according to Comscore data cited by AP.

In addition Axios reported that “website visits for the top-performing news websites in the U.S. tracked by Similarweb in the first 11 months of 2021 dropped 8%” but “traffic to hyper-partisan and political publishers took a severe hit in 2021, while mainstream news publishers did better.”

NEW YORK—As the Tokyo Olympics prepare to get underway on July 23rd, a new consumer survey from Zeta Global finds low consumer interest in watching the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and that viewing is shifting towards streaming. 

Based on responses from over 2000 respondents across the United States, the survey found that enthusiasm for the Tokyo Olympics is low. 

The majority of U.S. consumers are not looking forward to the Olympics this year: 45.2% of U.S. consumers surveyed are not looking forward to the Olympics, while 17.5% are undecided, Zeta reported. 

That lack of interest, has prompted Zeta to predict that the Tokyo Olympics will be "one of the lowest-watched Summer Olympic Games in the 21st century, to date."

It argues that as the U.S. economy re-opens and people begin to travel more this summer, people are not prioritizing the Olympics and may be nervous about watching it in crowded locations as they travel. 

Respondents of the survey noted that 52.7% of people surveyed said they would not watch the Olympics with people they don’t live with, and only 19.4% will watch the Olympic Games in a location outside of their home.

Women and Generation Z viewers are, however, more interested in watching the Olympics than other demographics. Generation Z and younger Millennials (adults 18-34) had the highest proportion of interest watching the Olympics, with 48% of surveyed women were interested in watching the Olympics, versus only 41% men. 

Female Olympians are also heavy fan favorites. Only three male athletes made the survey’s top ten list of Olympic athletes, which included: 1. Simone Biles, 2. Katie Ledecky, 3. Naomi Osaka, 4. Kevin Durant, 5. Allyson Felix, 6. Megan Rapinoe, 7. Alex Morgan, 8. Julie Ertz, 9. Devin Booker, 10. Caeleb Dressel.

The survey also found that women’s gymnastics is the #1 favorited Olympic sport, with nearly one third (32.7%) reporting women’s gymnastics as their favorite sport. Others include volleyball, swimming, track and basketball.

Among adults 18 to 34, 28% were most interested in basketball.

Among political interest groups, Republicans are much more interested in women’s gymnastics, while Democrats favor swimming and men’s basketball as a favorite event.

The survey also found that while Cable TV (NBC) is still the preference for those watching live Olympic events, mobile and connected TV viewership is rising. 

The gap between watching the Olympics on traditional Cable TV (33.2%) versus Mobile (28%) is closing; while Tablet/Laptop (19.5%) and Connected TV viewers (19.3%) are similar, signifying the rise in CTV over the past year.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has debuted a new measurement service, The Gauge, that shows streaming accounted for about 26% of total TV viewing in May, slightly more than the 25% spent on TV, but still behind the 39% with cable among people aged 2 and older. 

Among the streamers, Netflix and YouTube tied for first with each of them accounting for 6% of total TV viewing. Hulu (3%), Amazon’s Prime Video (2%) and Disney Plus (1%) rounded out the list of streamers.  

Nielsen also listed an all other category (9%) of total viewing that included many other things, including VOD, streaming through a cable set top box, gaming, and usage of other devices such as DVDs. 

In a statement, Brian Fuhrer, senior vice president of product strategy at Nielsen noted: "the past year has categorically shifted the television viewing landscape. Even as people begin to dive back into their pre-pandemic activities, based on the changes many made to enable streaming coupled with the variety of newly introduced services, we expect people to keep sampling and exploring their options.  Maybe just as importantly, as production ramps back up, new content will enter the space, driving additional traction.”  

NEW YORK—The Media Rating Council has issued a statement that Nielsen had understated local viewing earlier this year, with smaller markets exhibiting the most problems. 

In May, the MRC had criticized Nielsen’s underreporting of national viewing during the pandemic and it is now reporting similar discrepancies in local viewing among the 56 local metered markets it studied.

“The results show an overall understatement of reported viewing estimates, which is of a similar dimension to the understatements that were seen in the earlier set of national analyses conducted by Nielsen,” the MRC reported. “The sizes of the differences between the simulated and actual viewing estimates appear to correspond largely to market size, with the smaller metered markets (in particular, those markets with a Set Meter + Return Path Data methodology) evidencing the most pronounced differences, while the larger Local People Meter markets, and, to a lesser extent, the Set Meter + PPM markets, displaying somewhat smaller differences between simulated results and reported viewing.”

The MRC simulations found that the largest problems in the smaller “Set Meter + RPD Markets,” where households using television (HUTs) were undercounted by 1% to 5%, with an average difference of 2.5%. 

In these markets, the undercount of people using television aged 25 to 54 (P25-54 PUTs) was as high as 9%, with an average difference of 3.9% between MRC’s simulations and Nielsen’s numbers. 

In markets using the “Set Meter + PPM” methodologies, undercounting of HUTs was as high as 3.7%, with an average difference of 1.3% and the P25-54 PUTs were as high as 4%, with an average difference of 2.2%.

In contrast LPM markets had an average discrepancy of 0.4% in HUTs and 1% in P25-54 PUTs. 

The findings bolster widespread complaints from broadcasters and networks about Nielsen's numbers. 

Even at the seemingly small 2% to 4% levels, the undercounts could represent hundreds of millions of dollars in the local TV ad spending. 

Earlier this year Magna estimated that local TV advertising would hit about $14.3 billion in 2021. That estimate would mean a 2% undercount could cost broadcasters $286 billion, while 4% could translate into more than half a billion in lost revenue. 

The MRC stressed, however that “results should be considered preliminary, and are based on an April 19th visitation cutoff date (the same coverage period that was used for the analyses of national ratings estimates) for the determination of those panel homes to be included or excluded.”

In a statement, Nielsen noted that “In collaboration with the MRC, Nielsen has been conducting a thorough analysis of the estimated impact of changes to its panel maintenance protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic in Local markets. Throughout the pandemic, Nielsen has demonstrated innovation and resilience, and has conferred with the MRC to implement procedural changes that prioritized the safety of our panelists and people, as well as the integrity of currency metrics used by the industry."

Nielsen also stressed that its "February 2021 simulation analysis showed that 90% of P25-54 rating changes for major local stations and cable networks were no more than 0.05[%]" different from reported results.

In addition, Nielsen said that " since early March 2021, Nielsen has been actively applying key learnings in the field as we return to pre-COVID maintenance procedures.  Our first step was to identify the homes that were in most need of a maintenance visit. As of June 4, we have addressed 100% of the homes with maintenance needs. As we continue to execute our panel recovery strategy, we are excited to help the industry return to normal following this unprecedented pandemic.”

NEW YORK—In a notable example of how local TV stations are changing the way they sell local ads, the ABC Owned TV Stations have announced that they will use impressions-based selling and buying for local TV.

The shift to using impressions, which has long been the currency for digital sales, is an important shift away from using ratings as the basis for TV ad sales. 

The move means that digital and TV can be sold on the same footing, making it easier to craft cross-platform buys. 

In a statement on the adoption of impression-based selling and buying for local TV stations, Debra OConnell, president of networks at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution at The Walt Disney Company noted: “Today, the ABC Owned Television Stations provide best in class content that serves our communities on a variety of video platforms, including linear, digital and OTT. Marketers with local strategies want to build multiplatform campaigns and need a common currency to do so effectively. Using an impressions-based currency to evaluate, sell and buy local broadcast video enables us to offer our advertisers full visibility into local audiences and extends the overall reach of their messaging across platforms. The ABC Owned Television Stations fully support the adoption of impressions as the currency for local broadcast TV.”

NEW YORK—TV networks want to double check Nielsen’s numbers regarding TV ratings during the COVID-19 pandemic. A formal request for a third-party audit of Nielsen has been issued by the Video Advertising Bureau, which Variety first reported.

A letter sent from VAB CEO Sean Cunningham, which represents the TV networks, cites the “profound dissatisfaction and concerns with Nielsen’s handling of our industry’s month-long urging for rightsized remedies to shortfalls in the company’s COVID period TV usage and measurement data.”

VAB has been making the argument that Nielsen let its system degrade during lockdown, saying that the network of households the supply “usable” information shrunk by 20% between February 2021 and February 2021. VAB also claims that the number of homes registering no TV viewing at all rose 120%.

Nielsen has that it has full confidence in its reporting of numbers.

VAB is demanding that Nielsen submit to an audit from Ernst and Young to verify data from March 2020-March 2021. VAB wants a response from Nielsen by April 19.

For more information, read the full story on Variety. 

UPDATED

NEW YORK—Super Bowl LV, which saw Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers convincingly beat the Kansas City Chiefs, posted the lowest total viewership number for the big game since 2007, as CBS reported a Total Audience Delivery of 96.4 million viewers across all platforms.

That number includes viewers that tuned into the game on the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Buccaneers and Chiefs mobile properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes television and digital properties. The total viewership was down about 5.5% from Super Bowl LIV.

Of the 96.4 million average viewers, 5.7 million were live streaming the game, what the CBS says is a record and up 65% from 2020’s game.

As for the average TV audience, Nielsen reports that the game drew about 92 million viewers. Comparatively, Super Bowl LIV drew an average TV audience of 99.9 million viewers to the Fox broadcast. According to Nielsen, the 92 million average TV viewers represents the lowest TV audience for the Super Bowl since 2006's Super Bowl XL, when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 

As part of the record streaming numbers, CBS reports that Super Bowl LV was the first NFL game to deliver more than 1 billion streaming minutes. For the network, Super Bowl Sunday also represented its best day in terms of new subscriber sign-up, unique devices, streams and time spent with the CBS All Access streaming service.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the on-air ratings dip for the Super Bowl was in line with the rest of this NFL season, which saw regular season games down about 7% year-over-year, as well as lower ratings for earlier playoff games.

The game unfortunately was not as competitive as many had hoped, with Tampa Bay beating Kansas City 31-9, which gave Tom Brady his seventh Super Bowl title.

NEW YORK—Nearly 40 million people tuned in to see the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the U.S. on Jan. 20, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen. Viewership was up over the 2016 inauguration of Donald Trump, though numbers fluctuated, particularly on cable news networks.

CNN was the network of choice for 10 million viewers, besting the broadcast networks and MSNBC and Fox News. That number represents a 196% increase over viewership from Trump’s inauguration. Nielsen also reported that CNN was the primary choice for coverage of the primetime inaugural celebration on Jan. 20. The news network has seen consistently strong ratings since Biden was elected, Nielsen says.

Despite not having the same size audience, MSNBC saw an even larger growth in viewership, with 6.53 million people watching the ceremonies on the cable network, a 338% increase from four years ago. MSNBC said it had its highest daytime ratings in its history for the inauguration.

Inversely, Fox News’ audience dipped 77% over the last inauguration, with Biden netting 2.74 million viewers of the network.

ABC led all broadcast networks with 7.66 million viewers (up 10% from 2017), followed by NBC’s 6.89 million (down 12%) and CBS’ 6.07 million (down 13%).

Overall, the top six networks’ audience was 4% larger than for Donald Trump’s inauguration.

These numbers are not a complete estimate, as Nielsen says that it is still counting people who watched on other networks or outside their homes.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.—Entravision and Nielsen have inked a deal for the ratings service to provide comprehensive measurement services to all of the station group’s local TV stations.

Entravision, which operates stations in 22 markets, will rely on Nielsen for local TV ratings, Nielsen Local TV View, audio ratings and digital ad ratings.

The broadcaster is the largest affiliate group for the Univision and UniMás TV networks. It operates 42 Spanish-language stations, including Univision, UniMás and AZA affiliates, as well as 11 English-language stations, including independent and NBC, Fox and CW affiliates.

"As Entravision continues to engage Hispanic and Latino consumers, it is imperative that our television stations are well equipped to provide measurement of Spanish language audiences as we execute our multiplatform strategy," said Karl Meyer, chief revenue officer of Entravision. "Nielsen's ability to measure Spanish-language audiences was a critical factor in this decision, as no other company directly measures over-the-air audiences or has the commitment to full representation of Hispanic viewership."

The broadcaster also credited Nielsen’s efforts to measure audiences in a fragmenting media landscape and its commitment to improving methodology as factors in its decision.

“Nielsen is committed to measuring the total audience and ensuring full viewer representation. Nielsen shares Entravision's dedication to diversity, and has made significant recent investments in the local television business that support this,” said Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Nielsen Local TV Catherine Herkovic.

In October 2019, Nielsen completed an effort to transform its local TV business by combining advanced meter technology, big data and people-powered panels into its service.

More information is available on the Nielsen website. 

NEW YORK—When “M*A*S*H” aired its final episode, a reported 106 million people tuned in to watch it live. Those sort of numbers are highly unlikely to ever be repeated again, but according to a new Nielsen report, just because viewers aren’t watching a show at its initial airing doesn’t mean it isn’t generating strong numbers.

Live sports remains one of the remaining programming options that retains a high level of viewership at airing, but with DVR capabilities abound, viewers for genres like primetime dramas or sitcoms often wait to watch at a time convenient for them.

“When the media industry … considers defining a hit in measurement terms, it’s crucial that the full viewing audience is considered,” Nielsen wrote in its summary.

According to Nielsen’s report, in the first quarter of 2019, U.S. adults 18 and over spent nearly four hours each week watching delayed, or time-shifted, viewing. When they would turn in could range from slightly delayed on the same day to more than seven days after the initial airing.

Looking closely at the beginning part of the 2018 television season (Oct. 1-Dec. 30, 2018), traditional viewing beyond live or same day out to 35 days provided a 10% lift in viewing for programs, an average of 2.7 million more viewers. For viewers between the ages of 18-49, there is a 14% rise (1.1 million viewers) over the same period.

The genre of the particular program does impact the numbers as well. During that same period, ratings increased 40% for viewing up to 35 days after going live for primetime dramas, 65% higher for the 18-49 age range.

Nielsen concludes that this data can help marketers make sure they reach their full potential audience.

NEW YORK— Fox Sports is taking Nielsen out-of-home numbers. The TV metrics institution said the net is the latest subscriber to its National Out-of-Home Reporting Service. The multi-year agreement provides the Fox Sports broadcast network, FS1, FS2 and Fox Deportes with program and commercial ratings for live through live-plus-seven days of time-shifted viewing.

“Sports are being watched everywhere, every day and on every type of screen. Our business has to keep pace with changes in viewer behavior,” said Eric Shanks, President, chief operating officer and executive producer for Fox Sports. “Nielsen’s out-of-home measurement enables us to measure our audience wherever they may be, which in turn allows us to better service the advertising industry.”

Fox’s NFL regular season saw a 16 percent lift from out-of-home measurement among adults 18-49. Furthermore, Nielsen’s out-of-home service data pointed to a younger, more diverse, more female and more affluent audience than Fox Sports’ in-home NFL audience.

Fox Sports and its networks will receive weekly reports that include daily data for program and commercial audience estimates. The out-of-home viewing data will be derived from Nielsen’s Portable People Meter technology and combined with national TV ratings. The expanded audience estimate will enable Fox Sports to ascertain viewing that occurs in locations such as hotels, gyms, bars and the workplace. Furthermore, the PPM is equipped with detection technology to know when a panelist is in-home versus out-of-home, allowing Nielsen to capture and credit Linear TV content anywhere the viewer is watching or listening to TV.

The National Out-of-Home Reporting Service is the first electronic measurement service that provides viewing estimates for both in-home and out-of-home. This opt-in service leverages Nielsen’s PPM technology from nearly 77,000 installed panelists. Using a fusion methodology to combine the PPM footprint across 44 local TV markets with Nielsen’s national representative panel, Nielsen is able to represent 65 percent of the TV U.S. household population to project what people are watching outside of their homes.

STAMFORD, CONN.— NBC said today that “Sunday Night Football” just finished as primetime’s top TV show in all key metrics for a record sixth consecutive year, tying “American Idol” for the most consecutive years at No. 1, since 1950, based on Nielsen data.

NBC said “Sunday Night Football” also ranked as the No. 1 show in the 18-49 demo for the seventh consecutive TV season.

A total of 25 primetime telecasts between Sept. 8, 2016 and May 23, 2017 averaged at least 20 million viewers, NBC said. These included NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” NBC’s and NFL Network’s “Thursday Night Football” and 13 NBC NFL Playoff games. The World Series was up there. Same with college football and basketball, the Oscars, the Grammys and Golden Globes, and—rounding out the 20 million club, one news program—“60 Minutes.”

NEW YORK—In an effort to increase understanding of audiences and their viewing trends, Nielsen has announced a multi-year agreement with AT&T to include set-top-box data from connected homes subscribed to AT&T’s DirecTV and U-Verse services.

Nielsen will combine its panel data with anonymous TV viewing data from DirecTV and U-Verse subscribers, which Nielsen will then use for reporting on an aggregated basis. The goal for the data from AT&T is to help boost Nielsen’s local and national TV measurement services, providing electronic measurement in all 210 local TV markets.

Data from AT&T’s DirecTV and U-Verse set-top-boxes will also be incorporate with data from other data providers to complement Nielsen’s national and local suite of products; this includes Nielsen Scarborough, NLTV and Nielsen N-Score.

RIO DE JANEIRO—NBC is earned gold in the ratings during the first weekend of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. According to a press release from the broadcaster, the first two days of the Games are the second best primetime start of any Olympics on record.

The average primetime viewership for the first two nights of the Olympics was 24.4 million viewers, while the household rating was 13.0. Compared to all other broadcast networks over the same span, NBC reports it as a 294 percent viewership advantage and a 210 percent household edge. Those numbers are second only to the 2012 London Olympics according to the press release.

NBC says that its Saturday coverage of the Games was watched by 80.5 million viewers in 46.5 million homes. The primetime figures do not include simultaneous coverage on the other NBCUniversal channels, including NBCSN, which drew in an average of 1.5 million viewers, and Bravo, which had 705,000 reported viewers. Overall, NBC received a 5.9 primetime rating with adults between 18-49, which bested other networks’ combined 0.7 for what the press release says is the largest advantage on record for any non-Super Bowl night.

Though the comparison to other networks trails London, NBC reports that its full-day coverage of events is topping London over the same time period to this point. It is also seeing record highs for digital streaming, reporting a total of 155 million live streaming minutes and 11.3 million unique users on Saturday; NBC reports a total of 216 million live streaming minutes through Saturday.

NBC is expected to begin reporting Total Audience Delivery later this week. These reports will measure full consumption of broadcast, cable and digital/other.

SAN JOSE, CALIF.—The Super Bowl continues to be too big to fail, as CBS has announced that its broadcast of Super Bowl 50 averaged 111.9 million viewers on Sunday, Feb. 7, according to Nielsen Fast National ratings. The numbers were good enough to be the third-most-watched program in TV history, but shy of last year’s Super Bowl, which 114.4 million viewers, which remains the most-watched TV program in history.

The broadcast peaked at 115.5 million viewers from 8:30-9 p.m. EST.

One viewership category that did see recording setting numbers was in streaming. The live stream of the game drew 3.96 million unique views across laptops, desktops, tablets, connected TVs and mobile devices.

CBS Sports also announced that Super Bowl 50 did set the record for viewers who watched all-or-part of the broadcast, with 167 million viewers according to Nielsen's Fast Total Audience estimates. The previous record was for Super Bowl XLVII between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, which earned 164.1 million viewers.

Sunday’s Super Bowl 50 saw Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos emerge victorious against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers in a defensive heavy game. The record-setting Super Bowl XLIX saw Tom Brady’s New England Patriots win in dramatic fashion against the Seattle Seahawks.