Sales 2022: $ 3.530 billion (€3.350 billion)

Overview

Nielsen Holdings, a global measurement and data analytics company with roots in Illinois and the Netherlands (here originally as United Dutch Publishing Companies VNU), was particularly influenced by the eponymous Ratings known as the measurement of US television ratings. In October 2022, the acquisition by the private equity consortium by Elliott Management, for $16 billion.

An updated company profile will be published shortly.

General Information

Headquarters
85 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004
USA                                    
Telephone: 001 800 8641224
website: ir.nielsen.com

Branches of trade: Specialist information, media usage data, market research
Legal form: Stock Company
Financial year: 01.01-31.12.
Founding year: 1923 (AC Nielsen), 1964 (VNU), 2007 (The Nielsen Company)

Basic economic data (amounts in million US$)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Revenue	n/a	3.530	3.500	3.361	6.498	6.515
Profit (Loss)	n/a	n/a	963	7	(403)	(700)
Stock price (year end)	n/a	n/a	n/a	20,77	20,08	24,45
Employees	n/a	15.000	15.000	43.000	46.000	46.000

Executives and Directors

Management:

• Karthik Rao, Chief Executive Officer
• Warren Jenson, President and Chief Financial Officer
• George Callard, Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer
• Sandra Sims-Williams, Chief Diversity Officer
• Tina Wilson, Group General Manager, Portfolio Analytics
• Sujit Das Munshi, General Manager, Gracenote Business
• Amilcar Perez, Chief Revenue Officer
• Ryanne Laredo, SVP, Customer Experience
• Deirdre Thomas, Chief Product Officer
• Pete Doe, Chief Research Officer
• Srini Varadarajan, Chief Technology Officer
• Christine Pierce, Chief Data Officer
• Carole Robinson, Chief Communications Officer
• Adam Levy, Global Human Resources Leader
• Alison Gensheimer, Head of Global Marketing
• Stefan Maris, Chief Partnership Officer

History

The company's roots lie in Haarlem, Netherlands. VNU was formed in 1964 through the merger of the two largest Dutch publishers of consumer magazines, Cebema and De Spaarnestad. During the 1960s and 70s, the company expanded by acquiring additional publishing houses and printing companies in the Netherlands. In 1967, the group acquired the newspaper publisher Het Nieuwsblad van het Zuiden and the Catholic book publisher Het Spectrum. After the takeover by VNU, Het Spectrum shifted its activities from religious publications to Dutch translations of internationally renowned bestselling authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Somerset Maugham. In 1968, the magazine publisher Nederlandse Rotogravure Maatschaapij (NRM) and the offset printing company Smeets were integrated into the group. With the acquisition of the business magazine publishers Intermediar (1973) and Diligentia (1975), the company began to reorient itself toward business and trade publications. In the Netherlands, the acquisition of the publishing house Audet (1988) made VNU the market leader in the newspaper sector. When private television was launched in the Benelux countries, VNU initially held minority stakes in various broadcasters, which were then consistently increased throughout the early 1990s. 

In 1985, the group acquired the US information service Disclosure and used this as a base to build its activities in the North American market. Its strong involvement in the US was initially marked by significant losses. For example, Hayden Publishing, the computer magazine publisher acquired in 1986, was sold after just a few years. In 1992, the group acquired a 50 percent stake in the software company Spectra Marketing Systems and entered into a joint venture with Arbitron. VNU secured significant influence in the media industry in 1994 with the acquisition of BPI Communications Inc., publisher of the established trade publications "Billboard" and "Hollywood Reporter." Subsequently, in 1998, VNU embarked on a new direction by acquiring the information service provider World Directories (print and online telephone directories) for $2.1 billion and selling almost all of its printing operations, daily newspapers, and TV holdings. Since the end of the 1990s, the group has moved from the traditional publishing business areas towards market and media research. 

As part of this reorientation, VNU acquired the American company Nielsen Media Research for $2.7 billion in 1999. Nielsen still holds a monopoly on TV ratings in the US and Canada. However, the decisive factor in VNU's acquisition of Nielsen Media Research was likely the company's market position as an innovative leader in the field of internet ratings. Another important step for the group toward becoming a provider of market and media information was the acquisition of the American market research giant ACNielsen in spring 2001 for $2.3 billion. 

ACNielsen was founded in the USA in 1923 by Arthur C. Nielsen Sr. Nielsen invented the retail panel method, a method of collecting data in stores, and the concept of market share, which is still used today. After the Second World War, the company expanded into Western Europe, Australia, and Japan, among other countries. In Germany, ACNielsen acquired 100 percent of Schmidt & Pohlmann Gesellschaft für Werbestatistik in 1979 and founded AC Nielsen Werbeforschung S + P GmbH. In 1996, the media research division, Nielsen Media Research, was spun off from the group as an independent company as part of a restructuring process. When VNU acquired the two companies, they were reunited under one roof in early 2001. At the same time, the group divested itself of its consumer and educational publications.

In 2006, VNU became the target of a friendly takeover by private financial investors. 80 percent of the company's shares went to the financial investor group Valcon Acquisition, a consortium of six private equity firms, including the Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Thomas H. Lee & Partners, AlpInvest Partners, the Carlyle Group, and Hellman & Friedman. The major institutional shareholder, Knight Vinke Asset Management, initially resisted the takeover but later accepted an increased offer, which brought the company's market value, including debt, to €8.7 billion. By early 2007, Valcon had also acquired the remaining shares in VNU, making it a private company without a public listing until 2011. 

In the wake of media change and growing criticism of measurement methods by the advertising industry, Nielsen introduced a common quota for traditional television viewing, online streams, and DVR usage in 2009. Furthermore, under pressure from major media corporations, Nielsen founded the market research consortium CIMM. The "Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement" (CIMM) includes NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp., Discovery, Viacom, CBS, and Walt Disney, as well as major advertising clients such as Procter & Gamble, AT&T, and Unilever. The consortium criticized Nielsen's previous measurement methods as outdated and launched a pilot project to research and develop a cross-platform ratings measurement system for TV, internet, and mobile services. 

At the end of 2009, Nielsen sold eight trade magazines, including the Hollywood Reporter and Adweek, a trade publication for the advertising industry. Also changing hands were the renowned music magazine Billboard, which compiles the US music charts, as well as the magazines Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Backstage, and Film Journal International. In 2010, Nielsen also sold its travel magazines to NorthStarTravel Media and its food magazines to Stagnito Media. After that, Nielsen published only seven magazines. 

At the end of September 2015, Linda Yaccarino, NBC's advertising chief, publicly declared that ratings firms like Nielsen are facing an "acute crisis." Traditional media usage research has become obsolete in the internet age. Data and knowledge companies like Google already have more data on internet users through cookies and other tracking tools than Nielsen ever will. In times when website operators can independently monitor their user numbers in real time, Nielsen's so-called "panel" model—the installation of measuring devices in a small, representative group of recipients, which the company still largely relies on—seems antiquated. 

Nielsen's advantage, for the time being, is that a significant portion of TV consumption still takes place offline, and there's simply no better way to measure ratings using this distribution channel. The company also benefits from the fact that advertisers value obtaining media usage data from independent service providers rather than from the online video portals themselves.

management

Since the beginning of 2019, Nielsen has been led by David Kenny, who previously held managerial positions at IBM, The Weather Company, Yahoo, and Publicis, among others. At the beginning of his tenure, Kenny served as not only CEO but also Chief Diversity Officer. Nielsen, whose workforce is 36 percent minority, has made the diversity of its workforce a priority. This is partly because a significant part of the ratings work relies on explaining to marketing and advertising firms when and how various demographic and ethnic groups use media. As a white man, however, he quickly faced internal backlash from within his own ranks and quickly handed over the title to Sandra Wills-Williams, a Black woman. Sixteen percent of Nielsen's 43,000-person workforce are now organized in minority career networks. However, problems remain: African-American employees continue to complain about inequalities in pay and the speed of promotions.

Business segments

Following the $2.7 billion sale of its consumer research division Nielsen Global Connect (now NielsenIQ) to the private equity group Advent International in March 2021, Nielsen will now exclusively focus on audience research and analytics. Nielsen provides data for media companies on which advertising prices are set. At the same time, media research evaluates advertising for the industry and determines the success of various marketing tools. Nielsen measures the ratings of both national and regional broadcasters in the US. Across platforms, the so-called "C3" and "C7" metrics have been introduced, which measure how often commercials were viewed both live and delayed. Outside North America, the company measures TV ratings in 35 other countries. The best-known tools and services in Nielsen's media research division are Nielsen Media Research (TV), Syndicated Radio Ratings, Digital Ad Ratings (online advertising), and the "Mobile Software Development Kit," which measures mobile usage.

To measure streaming habits, Nielsen introduced "The Gauge," a tool that records internet traffic in 14,000 US households and can thus paint a more accurate picture of how much time is spent streaming. Previously, Nielsen had long relied on an audio sensor (the accuracy of which was controversial) installed in selected individuals to identify media consumption patterns.

Current developments

Nielsen's future success will depend largely on whether the company succeeds in positioning itself as a reliable source of streaming usage data in the YouTube and Netflix era. While some influential media executives, such as Discovery/Warner Media CEO David Zaslav, consider Nielsen's tracking methods "antiquated," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has since reversed his dismissive stance, likely primarily because Nielsen data confirms Netflix's streaming service's significantly higher relevance than its competitors' services. 

According to Nielsen, Americans now spend 26 percent of their TV viewing time streaming, while the rest is still spent on traditional cable TV. But Nielsen's fundamental problem remains: the streaming portals have collected significantly more data about their users than Nielsen and won't voluntarily release it—and they don't need Nielsen ratings either, since they don't monetize their content through advertising.