Fox’s Tubi Expands Relationship With Nielsen, Enhances Digital Ad Ratings Coverage
In an important vote of confidence, Fox ad-supported streaming service Tubi this morning announced a deal to expand its relationship with Nielsen.
Tubi said the expansion will include “enhanced and comprehensive” measurement via Nielsen’s digital ad ratings, as well as plans to adopt Nielsen’s new “cross-media” measurement service Nielsen One, when it is rolled out later this year.
As part of the enhancement of Nielsen’s digital ad ratings, Tubi said it will “expand coverage of streaming devices, including computer, mobile and connected TV (CTV) inventory served on specific CTV devices.”
The announcement comes as many of Fox’s biggest competitors — companies such as NBCUniversal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery — have been pushing advertisers and agencies to shift from Nielsen’s legacy ratings services and adopt new “alternate currencies” as the basis of their 2022-23 upfront advertising deals.
And while many on the demand-side acknowledge that most of those alternates will be used for “secondary” audience guarantees, using Nielsen’s ratings as their primary currency, at least one big media-buying agency — Horizon Media — announced it will guarantee upwards of 15% of its upfront ad deals on alternates.
The announcement also comes as Nielsen is in the throes of going private vis a vis a sale to a private-equity consortium, although it says it remains committed to the rollout of Nielsen One — a new platform using Big Data that will ostensibly replace its legacy ratings services.
Tubi, meanwhile, says its expanded relationship with Nielsen will include “co-viewing measurement and allow for buying target audiences across its library of over 40,000 movies and television series.
“As a movie and television streaming service with 80% of our viewers watching on TV screens, we’re excited about the proposed integration of Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings measurement across our device partners,” Tubi Chief Revenue Officer Mark Rotblat said in a statement announcing the deal. “This upcoming device coverage replaces slim proxies with comprehensive and stable currency-grade measurement, allowing our advertisers to transact on audiences in a way that is apples-to-apples with traditional TV.”
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