Nexstar, the largest owner of local broadcast stations in the country, will continue to use Nielsen to measure TV ratings.
The company announced today that it has entered a multiyear agreement for all 197 local stations and digital subchannels in 115 markets.
“Nexstar Media Group is a true leader in the broadcast industry with a long, proven record of driving revenue and profits for advertisers,” said Peter Bradbury, executive vice president of media at Nielsen. “Our alliance with Nexstar will leverage Nielsen’s unique suite of measurement services to establish a cross-platform currency that will provide audience insights across local linear TV, cable, mobile, desktop and over-the-top. We are committed to working actively with Nexstar to ensure that every station has the tools it needs to achieve its business objectives and deliver value and results to advertisers.”
Under the terms, Nielsen will also provide stations with data on product consumption habits, demographics and lifestyles of its consumers across all platforms—broadcast and digital.
“Nexstar’s company-wide relationship with Nielsen will allow our promotion, news and advertising sales teams to benefit from Nielsen’s full suite of audience ratings and combined audience data across all platforms in all Nexstar markets,” said Timothy Busch, president of Nexstar Broadcasting. “Nielsen’s ability to provide unified audience measurement across the entire 115 market Nexstar U.S. television household footprint will further support our company-wide commitment to best serve local and national advertising clients, with verified viewing and consumption data.”
In October, Nielsen announced it did an overhaul of its ratings measurement system, which includes more advanced meter technology to measure TV viewership across 208 markets.