It was perhaps the busiest year ever for media and marketing measurement, as rivals to industry heavyweight Nielsen made inroads, Nielsen went private and failed to regain Media Rating Council accreditation and media budgets shifted quickly toward connected TV. Here are 10 of the biggest milestones.

Nielsen rivals advance

ISpot.tv, VideoAmp, ComScore and Samba TV all won deals to serve as currency alternatives to market leader Nielsen in upfront deals from networks including NBCUniversal, Paramount, Fox and Disney Advertising. In some cases, they made substantial inroads, with NBCU reporting that it did more than 40% of upfront deals on non-Nielsen currencies, and Horizon Media saying it would write up to 15% of its upfront deals in currencies other than Nielsen.

Nielsen re-accreditation delayed

Nielsen, whose CEO David Kenny had predicted the restoration of Media Rating Council accreditation in months rather than years when it was suspended in September 2021, failed to get it reinstated. That re-accreditation isn’t expected to happen until early 2023 at the earliest now, as Nielsen also rolls out its next-generation Nielsen One big data and panel cross-platform measurement.

Nielsen goes private

Facing growing competition in its lucrative TV measurement business, Nielsen was taken private by a group led by Elliott Investment Management and Brookfield Business Partners for $16 billion. The deal, announced in March, closed in October. The impact of the move remains to be seen, though Nielsen began a reorganization under its new ownership in December.

Alternative panel talk

With Nielsen’s panel-based TV ratings and its Digital Ad Ratings not currently accredited by the MRC, the Association of National Advertisers launched a review for possible alternatives to be used by Comscore and VideoAmp in the group’s cross-platform measurement pilots next year. Simultaneously, the Video Advertising Bureau has been conducting a review for a larger alternative provider that any Nielsen rival (or for that matter, Nielsen) could use. Both those reviews remain ongoing, and the two groups have been in talks about collaborating.

NBCU continues its own review

NBCUniversal completed the first phase of its own review of the alternative measurement universe, issuing a report on “currency contenders” in March. In November, the network set up a “currency council” including advertisers such as General Motors, State Farm and T-Mobile to continue reviewing measurement alternatives.

MRC issues outcomes standards

With a growing movement toward doing media deals based on sales and other outcomes rather than audience measurement, the Media Rating Council issued a complex set of standards for accrediting outcomes measurement. So far, no measurement firms have applied to be accredited under the standard, however.

iSpot gets a big pile of cash, invests in TVision

iSpot.tv meanwhile got its biggest investment round yet, a $325 million investment by Goldman Sachs in April. Among the uses: iSpot led a $16 million investment round in alternative measurement panel provider TVision, giving it exclusive access to TVision’s full connected TV measurement capabilities.

Clean rooms open and advance

Disney Advertising, NBCUniversal, IRI, Epsilon, Dentsu, OpenAP, Omnicom Media Group, VideoAmp and The Trade Desk were among many making advances in setting up or piling into clean rooms that allow privacy-compliant sharing of data for targeting audiences and measuring outcomes.

TV shifts toward CTV and biddable

While getting audience measurement right remains a priority, the terms of engagement are changing fast. A growing number of video advertising deals by big players such as Procter & Gamble Co., L’Oreal, PepsiCo and Campbell Soup Co. among others are going into connected TV offerings. Frequently, these buys are based on custom audiences and executed with bids programmatically by The Trade Desk or others rather than bought using Nielsen or others’ age-gender demographics.

TelevisaUnivision launches Hispanic identity graph

TelevisaUnivision followed through on a promise made during the 2021 upfront to launch a Hispanic identity graph that it bills as the most comprehensive in the industry, backing that up with third-party validation via TruthSet. Efforts by VideoAmp to fully include Hispanic audiences in its big-data audience measurement won that Nielsen rival a spot as an alternative currency for deals by the network.

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CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of upfront deals Horizon Media will write with non-Nielsen alternative currencies.