Nielsen’s New Owners Face Old TV-Measurement Challenges

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNetflix has held Madison Avenue at arm’s length for years. Now, the popular streamer wants to draw the advertising industry in a tighter embrace.After years of resisting the prospect of running commercials, Netflix signaled on Tuesday that it’s ready to consider launching an ad-supported tier of its service, which has lured traditional TV viewers with ad-free series like “Stranger Things” and “Ozark” and commercial-free movies like “Don’t Look Up.” Figuring out an ad strategy could take months, said Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-CEO, during an investor meeting, “but think of us as quite open to offering even lower prices with advertising as a consumer choice.”The company announced its intention to court commercials just weeks before the start of the industry’s annual “upfront” ad sales season, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory for the next programming cycle.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs TV networks race to find a new yardstick to measure modern video audiences, one top buyer of commercial time says it’s already waiting at the finish line.Horizon Media, an independent Madison Avenue media agency that works for big-spending clients like Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Corona, said it intends to commit “up to 15% of its deals” in the industry’s coming upfront market using new measurement currencies that don’t rely on the sector’s longtime tabulator of audiences, Nielsen. Horizon issued a request for information to various media companies in the fourth quarter of 2021, and expects to work “with media entities including Paramount, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorVideoAmp has gained notice in recent months for its work with various media agencies and TV networks that are trying to take on the increasingly difficult task of measuring video audiences. The company hopes its latest maneuver will help make that complex assignment more simple.VideoAmp has acquired Elsy, a company that helps advertisers optimize the money they are spending to place commercials on various media platforms.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMelissa Stark clearly knows the value of staying in touch.The veteran sportscaster served as the sideline reporter for “Monday Night Football” between 2000 and 2002, when she was just 26 and the game — then one of TV’s biggest weekly events — was still broadcast on ABC. She worked with everyone from the legendary TV executive Don Ohlmeyer to “MNF” announcers like John Madden and Dennis Miller —  and with Fred Gaudelli, the producer who would move on to work for NBC Sports and oversee “Sunday Night Football,” then all of NBC’s NFL coverage.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorWarner Bros. Discovery wants to interest Madison Avenue in everything from “Full Frontal” to “90 Day Fiancé.”The newly merged media conglomerate will fold what we’re once two separate upfront presentations into one, the company said Monday, reserving May 18 for a.showcase of both the Warner and Discovery properties as part of a unified portfolio.The new event essentially takes over the spot in May’s upfront week preciously occupied by WarnerMedia.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNorah O’Donnell and CBS News have come to terms on a new deal that will keep the anchor at “CBS Evening News” beyond the 2024 election, according to three people familiar with the matter.A CBS News spokesperson declined to offer immediate comment, and a spokeswoman for O’Donnell declined to make the anchor available for comment. O’Donnell disclosed her new contract Friday evening while having a toast with her crew at CBS News’ Washington, D.C., facility, according to these people.The deal was cemented despite growing speculation that CBS News, under the direction of co-president Neeraj Khemlani, might seek to replace the anchor, who has seen her profile grow during a stint co-anchoring the formerly-titled “CBS This Morning” and a tenure at a “CBS Evening News” that has moved its main operation to the nation’s capital.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorBefore the TV industry can claim to have a new yardstick in place for measuring audiences, it will need to test many different ones.WarnerMedia, slated to be acquired by Discovery within days, has struck an alliance with Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands that will allow advertisers to test how three different measurement services gauge the performance of ad campaigns. The results from the test could influence the sorts of measurement deals Warner offers in the industry’s next “upfront” ad-sales market and will aid Mediabrands’ review of measurement providers.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe people who once said they’d like to teach the world to sing now want to instruct it on how to recycle.Coca-Cola has over the decades used TV commercials to make consumers feel good about buying drinks that range from Sprite to Smartwater. To instill similar feelings about recycling the many bottles and cans that contain its beverages, however, it’s testing a different tactic.Coca-Cola has enlisted science educator Bill Nye to star in a nearly three-minute animated vignette that is available to stream on YouTube and takes viewers inside the recycling process.

the iconic Sheffield venue and club told music fans of the “devastating news that in one year’s time, our Landlord is trying to evict us, forcing us to close” – leading to an outpouring of upset and support from the music world.The current bosses of Sheffield’s Leadmill then responded to the owners denying their intentions to close the venue. Leaders of Electric Group, the company who bought the freehold for the site of the Leadmill in March 2017, argued that they’d be removing the current management but keeping the building as a music venue after renovations.The current management then hit back, arguing that they were being “exterminated by the landlord”.“They are destroying our business by evicting us,” they said in a statement to NME.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorFor at least one evening, worlds are colliding in late-night TV.Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel decided to switch up their hosting duties on April 1, with Kimmel traveling to New York to lead NBC’s “Tonight Show” and Fallon journeying to California to host ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” The studio audiences attending each broadcast were not informed of the move ahead of time, leaving them just as surprised as the TV viewers who tuned in Friday night. The Red Hot Chili Peppers served as musical guests for both programs.While such stunts are rare — each late-night program vies with the others for viewership and social-media activity — they are becoming less unique.

A.D. Amorosi When Anthony Kiedis told Variety about the unspoken, unwritten law of Red Hot Chili Peppers, one “where anything goes, anything is welcome,” the vocalist could’ve been talking up the gloriously manic mess of “Unlimited Love” (the “anything goes” bit), and the return of guitarist-composer John Frusciante (the “anything welcome” part) to the RHCP fold.What is most welcome when it comes to the Peppers’ sliding-scale-quality catalog is focus, a cohesiveness given to Kiedis, bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith almost exclusively by the solid, fancifully flighty melodies and impressionistic guitar work of Frusciante.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSome people who tune in ESPN2 for an April 6 NBA match-up between the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks may think they’ve gone back in time.The game will open in black and white and use graphics that evoke ABC’s 1960s coverage, then shift to a look that mirrors CBS’ NBA telecasts of the 1970s and 1980s. Look for a presentation that emulates NBC’s 1990s telecasts as well, complete with that network’s signature music.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAfter more than eight years, the weekday and weekend editions of PBS’ signature evening newscast are finally getting together.Washington’s WETA has long produced the venerable “PBS NewsHour,” the show once known as the “McNeil-Lehrer Report” and now anchored by Judy Woodruff, while New York’s WNET has since 2013 produced the Saturday and Sunday editions of the program. Starting April 2, all seven days will be under the auspices of WETA, with Geoff Bennett, a former NBC News and MSNBC correspondent and anchor who was named the program’s chief Washington correspondent in November, taking the reins of a re-titled half-hour “PBS News Weekend.”“I think we are going to build on ‘NewsHour’s’ traditional mix of news and interviews and in-depth features,” says Bennett, in an interview.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorTony Dokoupil has recently traveled to Medyka in Poland, Miami and Minneapolis, too. Over the course of a career in journalism, he has visited all 50 states in the U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Billy Slaughter (The Card Counter) has boarded Amazon Studios’ film The Burial, which is currently in production in New Orleans.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMedia-measurement mainstay Nielsen said it had agreed to be acquired by a private-equity group for $16 billion after holding out for a higher price than a previous bid.Nielsen said Tuesday that it would be purchased by a group led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corporation, an affiliate of activist fund Elliott Investment Management L.P., which has been lobbying for a Nielsen sale, and Brookfield Business Partners L.P., in a deal that calls for an all-cash deal of for $28 per share, or $16 billion, including the assumption of debt. Nielsen had previously blocked a sale, saying it did not value the company’s growth prospects properly.The sale takes place with Nielsen under the media industry’s microscope.

Aaron Carter is debuting some new facial ink as a tribute to his late sister, who died at age 25 from a drug overdose.