Why TV measurement transparency is under scrutiny

Connected TV fraud is quietly siphoning billions from the industry. The great TV currency debate isn’t really settled. And despite all the noise, traditional deals are still tethered to Nielsen—for now. From legal pressures to economic inertia, the forces shaping how media is measured and traded in 2025 were front and center at the Coalition for Media Measurement East conference in New York on April 8. One overarching message: The math behind the billions needs more transparency. Here are some of the key takeaways. ‘Currency Fiesta’ lives Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement, newly accredited by the Media Rating Council, will replace Nielsen’s panel-based measurement as the primary trading currency in the coming upfront. And the four-month standoff between Paramount Global and Nielsen that resulted in trading on VideoAmp is over. Yet it’s still a multi-currency world, said panelists in sessions at the CIMM event. “I like to think it’s not a currency war,” said Kym Frank, senior VP of ad sales research and data at Fox. “Maybe it’s more like a currency fiesta, where we’re all invited to the party, and some of us are more fun than others. I think the media industry is evolving constantly, and as a result, the currency needs to continually evolve and change.” Panelists expressed little doubt that Nielsen would continue as the currency of choice for most national deals written on age-gender demographics. But Jackelyn Keller, chief marketing officer of Comscore, noted that if the market really thinks MRC accreditation is important, Comscore stands to gain as the only MRC-accredited company across local TV markets in the U.S. Former Comscore and VideoAmp research executive Josh Chasin, now an independent consultant via KnotSimpler, cited an estimate that VideoAmp has 90% of the market for TV deals on advanced audiences and stands to gain share as the market moves that way. Economics and Nielsen’s lawyers Chasin, who is co-leading a CIMM study on the economics of measurement, also conceded that agencies are unlikely to ever move off of Nielsen for age-gender deals because it costs them money without necessarily providing a return on investment. Nielsen’s lawyers, who weren’t at the CIMM conference, are another reason the shift is unlikely, as described by Nicolas Grand, executive director of research and value analytics of GroupM. “It’s difficult to compare the data across currency providers on age and gender for the simple reason that Nielsen makes it impossible from a contractual standpoint,” Grand said. “And so that obviously is something that makes any changes difficult. It can be done, but obviously we have to be very careful how we go about it, because the last thing we want to do, trust me, is get the Nielsen lawyers on the phone. They’re not an easy bunch. But what I’ve said to Nielsen about this is, they should make it easier for us to compare their data with other currency providers. What are they afraid of? If they think their data is the best, the most accurate … they shouldn’t be afraid of allowing others to compare their data set with other currency providers.” That Nielsen contractual language has come up in a different context in the company’s current patent litigation against TVision, where it’s cited in an antitrust counterclaim by the defendant. Nielsen has filed to dismiss that claim as without merit. “Nielsen does not comment on confidential contracts with clients,” a spokesman said. Netflix gets attention Attention metrics have generated a lot of discussion and some skepticism of late. But a presentation by TVision indicated that they can make a substantial difference, particularly where the ad is highly relevant to the content, and that ads in premium content, specifically on Netflix, can hold viewer attention better. TVision CEO Yan Liu presented research that most CTV apps get declining attention levels over time. Netflix, however, not only holds its average attention level but even starts to increase it after two and a half hours. The research is based on TVision’s panel of 5,000 households, whose viewing is monitored with cameras that see when (and which) household members are facing TV screens and watching. TVision research with Netflix also showed that contextually relevant ads improved ad attention by anywhere from 12% for alcohol ads to 17% for sporting goods. And in general, premium app content delivers 6% higher average attention than other app content. When it comes to sports on Netflix, the biggest draw isn’t always the game. During Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL broadcast, the segment that captured the most attention by far, according to TVision, was Beyoncé’s halftime show. CTV ad fraud is rampant Panelists in a session on ad fraud in connected TV buying said it’s a largely overlooked problem but nonetheless huge, estimating the total amount as high as $7 billion annually in the U.S. Defining fraud as opposed to a suboptimal return on investment got some debate. “When we talk about things like inventory mismatches or even when it’s not truly misdeclared inventory, but a buyer would expect premium inventory and gets absolute garbage, there’s intention in that,” said Arielle Garcia, chief operating officer of the watchdog group Check My Ads. “That’s a little different than data is probabilistic, and therefore you don’t know exactly what audience you’re reaching.” “I think we as an industry have this hiding thing that if you don’t call me fraud, it’s OK, so we keep doing it,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia. He compared programmatic “audience extension sales” of CTV inventory to buying AirPods from a street vendor and then reselling them as genuine product. “And that is fraud. And then you can’t have trust.” “There is 30% more CTV sold than is actually watched in the United States,” he said. Much like buying the AirPods at an Apple Store as opposed to a vendor on Canal Street, buyers can eliminate the vast majority of fraud by sticking with the dozen top media companies and 50 top CTV channels or apps, Morgan said. “So everybody knows there’s a 30% chance what you’re buying is fraud.” He added that the questionable inventory is frequently available with rebates as high as 50% to 70%. That can mean inventory that sells at an $8 CPM—or the cost to reach 1,000 viewers—would net as little as $1.50 for the media company. “That can’t be real [inventory],” Morgan said. “And that happened in this last election for locally based inventory on platforms at the highest demand that there has ever been for CTV of a particular type. It was pure synthetic delivery, and it was moved by significant players in the industry.” Marketers need math transparency Former NBCUniversal measurement chief Kelly Abcarian, who hadn’t been on the industry’s conference circuit since she left that position in late 2023, returned for a fireside chat with a message: It’s time for marketers to get transparency on the math behind the media measurement they’re getting. “I think it was great to see Nielsen come forward and bring big data finally to the table,” said Abcarian, now chief strategy officer of consulting firm Matter More Media. “But do we really understand the math behind how it’s being applied? They talk about the fact that they’re applying it to the panel, where the [41,000 panel homes] match up to the 41 million [big data homes]. I’m not sure what the overlap is, but at the end of the day, the panel is probably still doing a lot of the estimation work. So is that estimation truly changing the game?” She said buyers need to understand the error rates behind the panel estimates that ladder up to big data estimates and how the algorithms actually work. And that’s not just a matter for Nielsen. She’d also like to see a new version of the Measurement Framework Look Book she helped create in 2022 at NBCU that would focus on the math transparency behind the methodologies used by all industry players. “We take pride in our transparency, which goes far beyond that of our competitors,” said a Nielsen spokesman. “Nielsen follows the process the industry has established through the MRC. We are also a business that does not publicly publish proprietary information. That is information shared directly with our clients, who we are in constant communication with. We often hold client webinars and individual meetings to discuss methodology and product performance.” Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook is May 22

Why TV measurement transparency is under scrutiny

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