Spotlight on The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global media and information company that leads the world in marketing information, media information, and television ratings.  The Company was founded by Arthur Nielsen, a market analyst, in 1923.  Nielsen went on to dabble in radio market analysis in the 1930s, providing ratings statistics for radio shows.  In 1932, the company had monitored food and drug purchases, and measured one’s “share” of the market; Arthur Nielsen is charged with coining the term.  Later, Arthur Nielsen ventured into television, for which he used the Nielsen ratings system that had originally been intended for radio.  In 1936, Arthur Nielsen had first acquired the Audimeter, the device used to measure the radio stations being tuned during the day.  The device was tweaked and the company created a national rating service in 1942.  The information was collected from a sample of 1000 homes.   Nielsen’s rating system has become the premier source of measuring television audiences.  Notably, the Nielsen Company is the first company to offer market research.  As of July 28, 2011, Nielsen reported revenue of about 1.4 billion, a 10% increase from the same quarter a year ago.  The Nielsen Company continues to lead us with marketing information, media, and television ratings by sampling viewers to determine what they are watching or what they are doing on the internet.     

             The Nielsen Company has a hefty hand in media and measures the public’s interaction with the digital world.  The company merged with Dun and Bradstreet Company in 1984, resulting in two separate companies in 1996: the Nielsen Media Research (television ratings) and AC Nielsen (consumer shopping trends/box office).  According to their website, The Nielsen Company prides itself in its presence in “100 countries around the world,” and providing its “clients [with] the most complete understanding of what consumers watch and buy.”  Nonetheless, The Nielsen Company is responsible for perhaps bringing us the ratings that enable our favorite shows to receive acclaim and continue their run on television.  The Nielsen Company’s twitter feed states, “Our social media report says people who use sites like facebook, twitter, etc. are more likely to shop online.”  This is just one of the examples of the media research that The Nielsen Company conducts.  One can say that The Nielsen Company examines the consumer relationship with the digital world.  In a recent field report, Nielsen says “Television advertising continues to thrive in a digital world.”  In fact, television advertising grew 9% to $18.8 billion in the first quarter of 2011, while other more traditional forms of advertisement did not grow as rapidly. http://www.responsemagazine.com/direct-response-marketing/field-reports-july-2011-issue-3652   The Nielsen Company continues to measure what we are watching, what we are doing on the internet, and how these factors contribute to other things consumers do.  Nielsen is watching.