Nielsen's Media Rating Monopoly Gets Competition

 Nielsen, the media rating giant, is getting competition from iSpot, as small, but well-regarded audience measurement company.

The upstart, iSpot, is going after Nielsen's big clients. During the Super Bowl, it predicted a "preliminary audience measurement estimate" for Super Bowl viewership, at 126.6 million viewers, while the final number came in at 123.4 million - not bad.

Nielsen has had a virtual monopoly on media ratings for decades and its time it got competition. There is good bank to be earned in media ratings and iSpot wants its share and will to work for it.  

As the global leader in audience measurement, it works across all channels and platforms to determine what audience preferences are and passes this information on to its clients. 

iSpot believes survey-based creative testing and measurement, that Nielsen uses, is too slow for today's fast-paced requirement to provide clients' up-to-the-minute feedback. They provide immediate verification of ad impressions. It considers itself to be the new standard of audience measurement.

By: Jim Lavorato, Entertainment Equipment Corp.