Paramount Global has officially renewed its contract with Nielsen, four months after hitting an impasse over cost of services.
The deal spans multiple years, effective immediately, and includes measurement for all Paramount platforms including national and local broadcast, all cable networks, and streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto TV, Nielsen announced Monday.
Paramount has also licensed new Nielsen services, including the company’s recent rollout of Big Data + Panel, which relies on additional insights about streaming viewership in addition to its regular panel of TV consumers and just recently received accreditation by the MRC.
“We are thrilled to resume our partnership with Paramount, as their leaders continue to build one of the strongest brands in entertainment,” Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said in a statement. “Our trusted data shows how Paramount’s content and advertising strategy is thriving across every platform, across all ages and demos. As Paramount continues its evolution into a next-generation media company, we’re proud to play a critical role and know this deal will be a win for everyone: Nielsen, Paramount and all of our joint advertising partners.”
Paramount and Nielsen hit an impasse in October, just ahead of CBS hosting the Vice Presidential debate. The essence of the dispute was that Paramount believed Nielsen was charging too much for its ratings services, which have come under fire in recent years as the media environment has grown more complex. Nielsen itself has admitted to undercounting viewership in the past but has affirmed that its methods are suitable to the current blended era of streaming and linear viewing.
It’s been an interesting four months, as Paramount Global tried to navigate the ratings landscape sans Nielsen. Meanwhile, Nielsen continued to roll out data about Paramount content, but stayed relatively silent when it came to touting the company’s successes. They made up for lost time in Monday’s release, finally mentioning that CBS scored record viewership for this year’s AFC Championship, and the network’s broadcast dramas like Tracker, Matlock and FBI have all been performing well.
Nielsen also gave a nod to Paramount+ originals that have broken through recently, including Lioness, Tulsa King, and Landman.
The deal comes just in time for viewership data on Sunday night’s 67th Grammy Awards, which aired on CBS and featured some historic wins, like Beyoncé finally nabbing Album of the Year for Cowboy Carter. That’s after the network tried to rely on other third-party data for the Golden Globes in January, which ultimately muddied the water and made it difficult to make any determinations about the show’s performance year-over-year.
In a statement of his own, George Cheeks, President and CEO, CBS and Co-CEO, Paramount Global, said: “Paramount and Nielsen are committed to addressing Television’s multiplatform future to the benefit of all of our stakeholders. Karthik and his team continue to meet the needs of our marketplace across all our platforms, and we are incredibly pleased to reinforce and reinvigorate our deal with our longtime partner. Paramount Global’s ratings wins reported today are just one of many successes we look forward to with Nielsen as we build upon this new future together.”
