Nielsen dismissed the Video Advertising Bureau’s complaints about plans to use first-party data from Amazon to measure viewing of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video.
“We recognize this is a period of exceptional change in which all parties are at different stages of their own evolution,” Nielsen CEO of audience measurement business Karthik Rao said in a letter to VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham. “However, the search for perfection risks further delaying the measurement innovations that will ultimately help drive the industry into the future. We believe that our principled, transparent and open approach to integrating first-party data requires all publishers to play by the same rules and will accelerate the industry’s move toward a streaming-first world.”
Cunningham and members of the VAB complained that using Amazon data would “tip the scale” in favor of TNF and leave other NFL broadcasts with fewer viewers counted. They asked Nielsen to hold off on using the Amazon data to measure Thursday Night Football for advertisers.
Amazon’s first-party data gave TNF a larger audience than Nielsen’s figures.
Rao said that Nielsen has been engaged with the industry — including VAB members — about integrating first-party data when it measures live streaming. He also dismissed specific complaints about Nielsen’s measurement of TNF as “misleading and inaccurate.”
The letter included details explanations of why the variances the VAB was finding in Nielsen data were either smaller than the VAB found or not caused by the use of Amazon data.
Nielsen has had a series of meetings about measuring sports live streams since 2021, Rao said. In March, Nielsen shared a document outlining requirements for integrating first-party streaming data.
“Clients other than Amazon did not immediately decide to take action, but we remain hopeful that they will in light of our progress and the level of engagement from other NFL programming/advertising competitors,” Rao said.
“While Amazon is the first integration partner, we have been in active discussions with many of our clients for years about incorporating their first-party data for more accurate measurement of audiences across all live program types,“ he said. “We look forward to bringing more such integrations into our measurement in the near future.”
