What are Nielsen ratings?

Nielsen ratings are a standard measuring metric shaping the television and streaming industries. These ratings offer valuable third-party insights into viewership and audience engagement by providing metrics of how many people are watching specific programs and their interactions with various types of content. Nielsen ratings help U.S. networks, advertisers and content creators make informed decisions regarding programming, marketing strategies and audience targeting. 

Ratings are the percentage of the (TV-owning) population that watched a particular program or commercial. There are many variations: A rating may be based on live viewing only, live + same day playback, live + 3 days, live + 7 days, or even live + 35 days. 

There are also ratings for households as well as specific persons-level demographic groups. Nielsen publicly publishes household ratings within the Linear TV Top 10 topline rankings every week. 

Impact of Nielsen ratings on programming

By offering objective measurement of viewership and content consumption habits, Nielsen ratings help networks and producers evaluate the performance of their content and set industry-standard advertising rates. This information is significant not only for determining a show’s success but also plays a pivotal role in shaping programming decisions and schedules across the industry. 

High ratings often lead to series’ renewals, while it’s possible that low numbers can result in cancellations or significant changes to a series. Having strong supporting data insights on viewership allows networks to curate content that aligns with viewer preferences and enhances audience engagement.

Setting the standard in advertising

Advertisers depend on Nielsen ratings to make informed decisions on budget allocation and set industry-wide advertising rates. 

High ratings signify a larger audience, making specific programs more attractive for advertising placements. Consequently, this data affects ad pricing and helps advertisers effectively target their campaigns, ensuring their messages reach the right viewers at optimal times.

How are Nielsen ratings calculated?

Nielsen ratings data is developed through a combination of panel data and big data. The advantage of integrating panel and big data sources together is that it improves overall data quality to ensure more robust data that captures even the smallest audiences, and delivers a reliable view of content performance. Learn more about the methodology of how Nielsen ratings are calculated and how Nielsen is ringing in a new era of measurement starting with the Fall 2025 TV season.

Nielsen ratings in the era of streaming

As streaming platforms are a growing part of the entertainment landscape, measuring viewership has become increasingly complex. Unlike traditional broadcast television with scheduled program airtimes, streaming presents unique challenges. Viewers access content on various devices, on their own schedule, oftentimes on multiple streaming platforms which complicates the capture of accurate viewing habits and preferences.

Nielsen offers comprehensive streaming ratings that account for both live and on-demand viewing across multiple platforms. Nielsen uses advanced technology and methodologies to not only track who is watching but also provide insights into viewer engagement and demographics, empowering content creators and advertisers with data necessary to reach the right audiences.

When comparing traditional television ratings to streaming ratings, the differences become evident. Traditional Nielsen viewership ratings focus primarily on linear viewing, capturing data from specific time slots and audiences. In contrast, streaming ratings encompass a broader range of viewer behaviors, including binge-watching and time-shifted viewing, to reflect the on-demand nature of modern consumption. This comparative analysis highlights how Nielsen ratings are evolving to provide a more comprehensive understanding of audience behavior in a rapidly changing media environment.

Make confident business decisions

Nielsen is relied upon as the leading measurement provider for TV ratings, holding current deals with all major broadcasters, streamers and professional sports leagues — and Big Data + Panel was widely adopted by the vast majority of broadcasters and agencies as currency for the 2025 Upfront.

Through Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement, we offer media content producers and advertisers a suite of solutions to be confident in the strategies to pursue and audiences they want to engage with.

The post Need to Know: What are Nielsen ratings? appeared first on Nielsen.

Blind spots to bright spot: how Indian CMOs are winning with unified data

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Blind spots to bright spot: how Indian CMOs are winning with unified data

Powered by Nielsen ONE ads

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India’s advertising landscape is more fragmented—yet more critical—than ever before. Billions of impressions, millions in ad spend, but still one burning question: Who’s really watching, and what’s the impact?

Many advertisers are left in the dark by siloed data, outdated measurement, and a lack of transparency. Don’t settle for guesswork. Get the clarity you need to win in India’s fastest-evolving media market.

“Advertisers are spending millions of dollars, and they need that kind of transparent, third-party, validated data. The Indian Premier League brings billions of impressions and millions in ad spend. Advertisers want to know: who’s watching, where is it being watched from, and are those views real?”

— Hemant Kewalya, Executive Director of Audience Measurement, Nielsen India

In this new article, we unpack:

The confidence to clarity gap—and how top brands are bridging it

The IPL test case: smart strategies for measuring billions of impressions, connecting real people with real data

Why a unified view is non-negotiable for smarter ROI and real business outcomes

How transparency is becoming the new currency in the Indian marketing landscape

“Absolutely, transparency is key to helping advertisers make informed decisions. We have seen a clear shift in how advertisers engage with us since the introduction of trusted, third-party digital ad measurement tool. During IPL 2025, advertisers across categories like CPG, Telco, Automotive, and Online Services were able to plan their campaigns with better efficiency and measure them with far greater confidence.”

— Anup Govindan, Chief Revenue Officer – Sports, JioStar

The post Blind spots to bright spot: how Indian CMOs are winning with unified data appeared first on Nielsen.

Getting ahead during retail’s peak advertising season

Leveraging competitive market trends and insights for a winning year-end strategy

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Getting ahead during retail’s peak advertising season

Leveraging competitive market trends and insights for a winning year-end strategy

Download now

As consumers ready their carts for the year’s biggest sales events, brands and agencies across Southeast Asia gear up for their final, crucial push of the year.

Navigate the hyper-competitive peak season with insights into ad spend trends, the retail industry’s top advertisers and competing creative strategies.

Inside this report, you’ll discover:

Crucial industry trends: Understand how retail and manufacturing advertisers in Southeast Asia are spending year on year.

Industry insights into spend activity: See who the top players within the industry are.

Competing creative strategies: Get a preview of in-market messaging and creative trends, alongside the promotions and price points of top competitors.

The post Getting ahead during retail’s peak advertising season appeared first on Nielsen.

Effective cross-media ad strategies can help marketers navigate today’s dynamic advertising landscape. But these strategies must be underpinned by data that looks holistically at how your ad dollars are being invested across channels and what ad creatives are making a difference to create actionable insights and outcomes for your business.  

The challenges of cross channel data

In Nielsen’s 2025 Annual Marketing Report, we found that marketers looking to calculate the ROI of their cross-media campaigns report a laundry list of challenges. While globally marketers found stakeholder alignment to be the biggest hurdle, it was followed closely by struggles with the amount and incomparability of data.

The sheer volume of platforms and devices consumers engage with daily are at the root of these challenges. From traditional television and radio to digital giants like social media, search engines and streaming services, audiences are scattered across a vast and diverse media ecosystem. Each platform often comes with its own unique metrics and reporting tools, creating silos of data that rarely speak to each other.

This disjointed approach makes it difficult to be seen and heard in the right places by the right people for your brand, leading to inefficient resource allocation and missed opportunities. Without a comprehensive understanding of how different media touchpoints interact and influence consumer behavior, marketers are left guessing, rather than strategically investing.

Breaking down data silos with advertising intelligence

This is where advertising intelligence can break down barriers. Nielsen’s Ad Intel solution provides a holistic view of the advertising landscape, with robust reporting across every major media type including TV, connected TV (CTV), digital, social, audio, print, out of home and cinema. 

With this holistic view, marketers can get a clearer understanding of where to invest their ad dollars across the market and how to reach audiences, moving beyond individual channel metrics toward overall campaign performance. A unified perspective is crucial for identifying which media combinations—and creatives—are truly driving engagement and conversions, enabling more informed decision-making, and ultimately, higher ROI.

The power of CTV in your media mix

As audiences continue to shift toward streaming content, CTV has emerged as a powerful advertising channel and a key player in this evolving landscape. Not surprisingly, marketers are shifting spend accordingly. However, simply adding CTV to the mix isn’t enough; its impact needs to be meticulously measured and integrated into the broader cross-media strategy.

To help marketers better understand how budgets are being allocated across media, we recently added measurement across more than 20 individual platforms totalling 95% coverage of the U.S. CTV ad market to Nielsen Ad Intel. This provides transparency for marketers to uncover where and how brands are investing in CTV and which platforms are capturing the most ad spend. When CTV data is integrated with insights from other media channels, consistent and comparable analysis can help marketers develop data-based strategies that drive outcomes.

Consider a real-world scenario: A brand launches a new product with a campaign spanning linear TV, social media and CTV. With integrated ad spend data, they could analyze messaging strategy and creative positioning across each platform by viewing actual creatives with placement information to see what is working in the market. This level of granular insight allows for dynamic adjustments to the media mix, optimizing spend for maximum impact.

Maximizing impact with cross-media ad strategies

Cross-media ad strategies that drive outcomes aren’t just about data collection; they depend on intelligent data utilization. That involves analysing spending trends across your industry, optimizing campaigns in real-time based on performance data, and ultimately, building a robust feedback loop to continuously refine your advertising strategy. This iterative process allows marketers to move from reactive adjustments to proactive optimization, ensuring every dollar spent is working its hardest.

Ultimately, the path to overcoming the fragmented media investment challenge and developing winning strategies lies in leveraging comprehensive cross-platform media intelligence. By bringing together data from all channels into a single, cohesive framework, marketers can gain an unparalleled understanding of their audience, optimize their media mix with precision, and confidently demonstrate the true value of their advertising efforts. This integrated approach is no longer a luxury but a necessity for any brand looking to thrive in the complex, multi-screen world of modern advertising.

Learn more about how Nielsen’s advertising intelligence data can help shape your cross-media ad strategies.

The post Cross-media ad strategies are evolving—Here’s what’s missing in your ROI equation appeared first on Nielsen.

By focusing on local consumer insights, marketers can design personalized strategies that resonate, driving engagement and brand loyalty. Let’s explore how you can transform local trends and consumer habits into actionable strategies that drive growth.

Decoding local consumer behaviors

Many factors, from economic conditions to cultural norms, influence local purchasing decisions. Consumers often make choices based on their immediate environment, including the availability of local goods and services, and the reputation of nearby brands. By tapping into local consumer insights and understanding these consumer habits, you can tailor your offerings to align with local trends.

Demographics play a pivotal role in shaping consumer preferences. Age, income and family structure are key influencers in determining the products local consumers favor. When we zoom in on two cities, we can see how age can drive purchasing preferences. Not only are Boston and L.A. on different coasts, they also have different population make ups. L.A.’s population is fairly evenly distributed across age groups with about a quarter of the population aged 18-34, while more than one out of every three people in Boston is aged 18-34. When we look at how consumers in these markets are thinking about their purchases with environmental considerations in mind, younger consumers in Boston are much more likely to over-index the total population for buying eco-friendly household cleaning products than in L.A. 

By understanding values and interests of local populations, marketers can see why specific groups are drawn to certain products, cars, restaurants, retailers, brands and more. This knowledge enables the crafting of targeted marketing strategies and product developments that truly resonate with local audiences.

Transforming data into actionable insights

Data is critical for marketers looking to personalize their strategies at the local level. Panels and surveys can provide marketers with key insights to better understand consumer preferences, and geographically segmented data can unlock local nuances.

Conducting more than 330,000 surveys a year throughout the U.S., Nielsen Scarborough identifies national consumer insights. These surveys also break out consumers by DMA® (Designated Market Area) regions, proprietary geographic regions exclusively defined by Nielsen. While DMAs were originally developed to represent areas where local TV stations capture dominant shares of viewing, they provide ZIP-level segmentation of local communities to help marketers better understand trends across the U.S. and in specific markets. 

The surveys break out local consumer habits across areas like automotive, banking, environmental, home improvement, leisure activities, restaurants and travel. These industry-level insights can help marketers understand their competitive landscape. Consider how an auto retailer might optimize its inventory based on regional preferences, or how a fast-food brand could adjust its menu offerings based on local competition. Take restaurants, for example. When we again look at our example cities, 89% of Los Angelanos have visited any quick service restaurant in the past 30 days, compared with 80% of Bostonians. When we break that down at the chain level, we can see even more differences. 

These examples highlight how leveraging local consumer insights gives businesses a competitive edge and keeps them relevant.

Crafting marketing strategies from local insights

In a competitive landscape, leveraging consumer insights to craft targeted marketing campaigns is a must. By understanding regional and local trends and consumer habits, brands can tailor their messaging to connect effectively with their audience. This hyper-focused approach not only boosts engagement but also enhances conversion rates, maximizing ROI.

Local consumer insights are essential for product development too. By identifying market gaps and aligning product features with local preferences, businesses ensure their offerings are both relevant and appealing. This consumer-centric approach fosters higher satisfaction and loyalty, paving the way for long-term success.

Measuring the impact of these insights on business performance is crucial. By tracking metrics like sales growth and customer retention, companies can evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies. Continuous analysis allows for agile adjustments, ensuring campaigns and products remain in sync with evolving consumer trends. Thus, local consumer insights become the cornerstone of informed decision-making and sustainable growth.

Learn more about Nielsen Scarborough, and explore our Scarborough Industry Reports available for purchase now. 

The post Unlocking personalized marketing with local consumer insights appeared first on Nielsen.

In Nielsen’s 2025 global marketing survey, we asked European marketers how they’re shifting media advertising budgets, prioritizing their marketing objectives, and utilizing AI technologies to meet their goals. Let’s dig into the numbers to help you understand how to navigate challenges for the rest of the year. 

Europeans are reducing budgets & shifting spending

There’s no denying that industries worldwide are working with tighter budgets this year. European marketers are facing unique economic challenges, and at 60%, were most likely to indicate a reduction in ad spend in 2025, in contrast to the 54% global average.

Several factors could be at play here. Challenges from sluggish local economies, trade uncertainties and ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe, and across parts of the Middle East,  are creating uncertainty in the European marketplace.

So with budgets shifting, where are businesses finding the most value in their paid media channel spending? Social media stands at the top of digital channels as the most effective, while European marketers consider out-of-home (billboards, signs, etc.) to be the most effective traditional channel at 51%.

There’s clear correlation in digital ad spend and these channels’ perceived effectiveness. Two-thirds of marketing professionals in the region say that digital media channels occupy at least 40% of paid marketing efforts compared to traditional channels. But these trends aren’t necessarily representative of all countries in the region.

Nielsen Ad Intel data shows that advertisers in the U.K. were heavily invested in social media in 2024. However, traditional print media remains a major advertising medium in Germany. Awareness of local market behaviors can help you make smarter spending decisions.

Understanding European marketing objectives

The data is clear—59% of marketers in Europe are overwhelmingly focusing on revenue growth this year. Comparatively, 37% are investing in brand awareness as their primary or secondary priority. 

This contrasts with other regions like North America and Asia where marketers are fairly evenly split on their priorities. 

They’re also prioritizing customer retention higher than new customer acquisition. These trends may speak to the state of slower local markets.

But despite a higher focus on revenue growth over brand, the region also reports the highest focus on measuring both reach/frequency and ROI at 62%, as opposed to individually — 2% higher than the global average.

Measuring success with tools and technology

While European marketers understand the importance of holistic measurement, when it comes down to measuring across media, the region is lagging. The share of marketers in Europe holistically measuring their digital and traditional media spending was only 23%, the lowest globally. 

Measurement technology can help marketers navigate these challenges. But here, Europe was also an outlier globally when ranking priorities for marketing measurement technologies. While all other regions ranked accuracy as the highest priority, European marketers notably ranked cost efficiency and transparency as theirs. 

It’s not too surprising seeing cost efficiency at the top considering European marketers’ aggressive focus on revenue growth. In terms of transparency, these marketers may be willing to sacrifice some accuracy and nice-to-have features for reduced costs, but they also want a clear understanding of any limitations in their measurement.

As European marketers look to drive growth and measure success, new tools like AI could also prove useful. Also ranking lowest globally, about two-thirds of respondents indicated that their company frequently uses AI in marketing measurement with quality assurance and predictive analysis being the most used features. Using AI to maximize cost-efficiency is at the forefront of businesses around the world, and the data shows there is certainly more room for European marketers to leverage these technologies to reduce costs and drive results.

Comparing the data

Marketers globally are facing their own unique challenges and prioritizing different strategies to navigate uncertainties in the global marketplace. Discover key strategies for brand building and performance success at our upcoming webinar on Tuesday, July 15.

Note

¹  eMarketer, 2025

The post Europe in focus: Marketing trends to watch appeared first on Nielsen.

Webinar

From Data to Decisions: Healthcare Ad Trends

Actionable insights for connecting with communities 

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Why watch this on demand webinar:

Discover emerging trends in healthcare advertising

Analyze healthcare ad spend to inform your geographic targeting

Leverage landscape analysis to drive results

The post Webinar: Healthcare Ad Trends appeared first on Nielsen.

The offer is an appealing one that marketers are choosing to invest in. According to eMarketer, retail media spending will reach $60 billion in the U.S. this year and $100 billion by 2028. Despite current economic uncertainty and difficult market conditions, retail media in the U.S. is expected to grow 20% in 2025, compared to 4.3% for the total ad market and 3.7% (at most) for retail sales. In our 2025 Annual Marketing Report, we asked global marketers about their plans for the next 12 months, and 65% of marketers said that RMNs would play a bigger part in their media mix. Only 2% are planning to pull in the reins. Clearly, retail media is on everyone’s mind.

But everyone sees something different in it, it turns out.

Who is driving retail media trends?

While globally 65% of marketers believe that RMNs will play an increasing role in their media mix this year, that figure varies by region. North American marketers lead the way, with 74%  saying that RMNs were more important than last year, up from 64% in 2024. Marketers in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region aren’t far behind at 69% and 68%, respectively. While the Asia-Pacific region did see a decline from last year in those planning increases, a greater percentage planned to keep their retail media spending the same as last year. Europe was the outlier with only 48% planning increases, down from 59% in 2024. This market is highly fragmented and stringent privacy regulations limiting the use of customer data for targeting purposes may be making it more challenging for these marketers to see the full benefits from RMNs.

If we analyze responses by industry instead of region, we can see striking differences in RMN adoption as well. Auto marketers are ahead of the curve, while travel & tourism marketers seem to be more cautious at this stage.

What’s driving retail media growth?

When we asked marketers about the role that RMNs played in their media strategy, many had a full-funnel vision for them. Retail media is not just about driving consumers to fill their shopping basket anymore. But here too, the variations by industry are telling.

Automotive marketers are again leading the pack, if not to test new product launches, but at every step of the purchase funnel once their product is in-market. Retail companies aren’t as concerned about boosting brand visibility since consumers are already on their platform, but most other industries are. In fact, outside of retail and technology, all other industries represented in our survey prioritized using RMNs for top-funnel use cases over low-funnel conversions.

How are marketers spending on retail media?

One of the reasons why RMNs can support marketing campaigns up and down the funnel is the diversity of ad formats that they offer. Amazon, for instance, offers sponsored product placements in the search results feed, display ads, video ads, and a variety of sponsored brand configurations that marketers can use to promote their brand within a store. It’s also possible for marketers to use Amazon’s first-party signals to target consumers off-site, outside of Amazon’s owned and operated properties.

We turned to Nielsen’s Ad Intel data to understand how brands typically split their retail media budgets between different ad formats on Amazon. Globally, sponsored products capture 40% of those budgets, followed by sponsored brands (24%), display (20%), and video ads (16%). It’s not surprising to see the bulk of retail media spend going to sponsored products, the most native of all ad formats on RMNs. But the patterns vary greatly from country to country. Sponsored brands and display ads dominate in Germany, for instance, while marketers in the U.K. are all-in on video ads.

When we look at the same media spend data by vertical, we found that food and drink brands tend to lean in to display. Note also how little telecom brands rely on sponsored products, and how much entertainment brands rely on videos.

The 2025 priorities for retail media

What should RMNs take away from those insights?

First, they need to look beyond shopper marketing and realize that brands are expecting them to be connected to the greater advertising ecosystem to help them meet a wide variety of marketing objectives. Off-site media spend is expected to grow 2-3X faster than on-site media spend for RMNs over the next couple of years. It’s a huge opportunity for them to capture a bigger slice of the advertising pie.

Marketers in most industries today tend to rely more on in-platform attribution tools than independent third-party measurement solutions to gauge the success of their full-funnel retail media campaigns. This will need to change for RMNs to fulfill their true potential.

RMNs are going to need to up their game and usher in what BCG has called Retail Media 3.0: A greater focus on media excellence (providing media options comparable to, and compatible with, the rest of the advertising ecosystem) and on developing strategic relationships with their brand partners. Both of those focus areas point to an increased need for independent measurement.

For more insights on global marketers’ concerns and priorities this year, please check out our fresh-off-the-press 2025 Annual Marketing Report.

The post The future of retail media  appeared first on Nielsen.

Webinar

Winning Strategies for Financial Services Advertising

How to achieve maximum ROI and peak ad performance

Watch the webinar

Webinar

Winning Strategies for Financial Services Advertising

How to achieve maximum ROI and peak ad performance

Watch the webinar

Why attend:

Stay ahead of the curve: Access local and national financial services advertising trends and predictions

Boost your campaign ROI: Translate insights into effective and impactful creative strategies

Gain a competitive edge: Leverage landscape analysis to drive results

The post Webinar: Winning Strategies for Financial Services Advertising appeared first on Nielsen.