TelevisaUnivision Ready to Do Ad Deals On Nielsen Measurement Data Others Won’t Embrace
Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Spanish-TV giant TelevisaUnivsion wants to speak a different language than its English-speaking rivals when it comes to audience measurement. Under pressure from some media companies, Nielsen said in April that it was going to hold back a new product that sought to use “big data,” or audience information gleaned from set-top boxes and smart TVs, as a way to provide more granular information about viewers. Nielsen said the new data would not be accredited for mainstream use, but would be available “for additional measurement during this transition for clients seeking to transact on it.” TelevisaUnivision is going to try. “We all know that today’s TV measurement is inadequate for our multi-screen world, and as a consequence, U.S Hispanics have been undercounted,” says Donna Speciale, president of U.S. ad sales and marketing at the company. “In fact, our audience is 26% bigger than current measurement. How did we get that information? Nielsen just told us,” she tells Variety, using its traditional panel-based tabulation as well as its “big data” product. “This is huge and and a huge step for equity,” she adds, noting that TelevisaUnivision will ask all agencies and clients to base this year’s upfront ad deals on that measurement.