iWorld
Nielsen to launch new commercial metrics to track individual ads on TV
Mumbai: Nielsen has announced that it will enhance its National television measurement by measuring viewing in a more precise manner, allowing for a future where audience estimates are based on individual ads rather than commercial minutes.
The latest enhancement to Nielsen Individual Commercial Metrics will help pave the way for true comparability across the digital and linear platforms and comes following a series of tech, measurement and methodology advancements as Nielsen accelerates its efforts for delivery of Nielsen One, its cross-platform measurement solution, it said on Monday.
With more precise commercial measurement, agencies, advertisers and brands will have the unprecedented ability to directly compare, plan and optimise ad campaign performance over both digital platforms and linear TV.
The announcement comes three months after the company lost the industry approval for its national TV rating service after the board of the US-based Media Rating Council (MRC) suspended its accreditation. The suspension of the decades-old TV rating service followed a long standoff between Nielsen and the networks over the former’s services, including discrepancies in the data shared by the company during the pandemic.
Nielsen said it has also expanded its relationship with Extreme Reach, the global leader in creative logistics, allowing for an efficient way of encoding the vast majority of all national linear TV commercials with Nielsen’s watermarks, which will launch in the first half of 2022.
“We’re very pleased to collaborate with Nielsen on this important step in improving workflow efficiency for marketing teams, which has been at the core of our mission at Extreme Reach for over a decade. Nielsen’s ongoing efforts to embrace the morphing worlds of linear and digital TV now provide a means for marketers and their agencies to understand and value digital and linear TV commercials in a directly comparable way, which is a distinct improvement for the industry,” said Extreme Reach COO Gaurav Agarwal.
Nielsen’s new Individual Commercial Metrics reporting capability will enable the measurement of linear television at a “subminute” level and audience estimates at a level of granularity that is more comparable to digital. Providing comparability in this manner paves the way for Nielsen One to provide something long sought after as an industry imperative—true deduplication across platforms, it said.
“Giving the industry true, trusted metrics that offer harmonisation across platforms is the bedrock to revolutionising the cross-media buying and selling process and a foundational step toward Nielsen ONE,” said Nielsen SVP Product Management Kim Gilberti. “By transforming our TV measurement and moving to Individual Commercial Metrics, both media buyers and sellers will be able to maximise the value of their inventory as well as capitalise and drive return on investment of their advertising spend across the rapidly converging traditional and digital landscapes.”
As a first step in this plan, in early 2022 Nielsen will enhance its process for collecting and crediting watermarks, enabling the detection of watermarks more frequently within a given minute, allowing for credit of shorter duration events, such as individual ads. This change will give sellers the ability to utilise Nielsen’s reporting to properly value their commercial inventory—from pricing to placement.
For the first time, Nielsen’s television measurement will also leverage Gracenote Content Signatures, which will allow for granular crediting for instances where there is no watermark present.
eNews
Piyush Thakur steps down as Inshorts’ chief revenue officer
Former vice president and cro says exit marks a new chapter after close to a decade of building revenue and partnerships at Inshorts Group.
NOIDA: Piyush Thakur has stepped away from Inshorts Group after nearly 10 years with the company, marking the end of a long tenure that culminated in his role as chief revenue officer.
In a farewell note, Thakur said he was “turning a new page” after almost a decade at Inshorts, calling it one of the hardest professional decisions he has made. He added that his exit was not driven by uncertainty about the future, but by reflection on a long association with the company.
Thakur joined Inshorts in October 2016 as vice president and spent around seven years in the role before being elevated to chief revenue officer in April 2024, a position he held until April 2026.
He said his tenure was defined by “thousands of mornings, late nights, product debates and breakthrough moments”, as the company evolved into a large-scale digital news platform used by millions.
In his note, Thakur emphasised that Inshorts’ growth was a collective effort across teams, adding that engineers, designers, sales teams and customer support staff all contributed to building the platform. He said the company’s success was not the result of individuals but of “everyone who stayed, passed through, and left their mark”.
Before Inshorts, Thakur worked across several digital media and business development roles. At ESPN, he served as senior regional manager from October 2015 to October 2016, focusing on growth initiatives, strategic opportunities and video distribution.
At Times Internet, he worked for nearly three years, including as head of business development from April 2015 to September 2015 and chief manager from January 2013 to March 2015. His responsibilities included monetisation of mobile platforms, managing media and developer partnerships, and driving revenue across digital properties such as The Times of India and The Economic Times.
Earlier, he worked at Brandmovers as head of business development from June 2012 to June 2013, handling digital, mobile and social media marketing solutions, client development and strategic consulting. During this period, he also worked on advertising revenue, brand strategy and CRM-based solutions.
At Inshorts, Thakur’s role focused on revenue strategy, mobile and media partnerships, and growth initiatives across platforms. His profile highlights experience in mobile product management, digital business models, partner ecosystems and revenue expansion in high-growth environments.
