Home The Big Story The Big Story: TV Drama And Business Data

The Big Story: TV Drama And Business Data

SHARE:
The Big Story Podcast

The Big Story podcast

It must be sweeps week, because TV drama is through the roof.

Nielsen lost its Media Ratings Council accreditation for National TV Ratings. The TV currency company calls the loss of the MRC seal of approval a hiatus while it focuses instead on Nielsen ONE, the cross-channel metric expected to launch late next year.

Broadcasters are frustrated by Nielsen’s undercount of TV audience numbers between when the pandemic started through Q1 this year, according to an MRC audit in February. Nielsen said the MRC council is not impartial, since it consists largely of broadcasters and other TV measurement providers.

On The Big Story this week, we discuss what the loss of one MRC accreditation means for Nielsen, and the ways TV ad sellers are already testing as alternative methods to guarantee certain audience reach benchmarks without the Nielsen standard. Not to mention speculating on a potential Nielsen acquirer.

The Big Story also has a guest appearance this week, with Myles Younger, senior director of Media.Monks’ data practice.

We discuss the ways marketers are bringing seemingly unrelated business data sources to bear in data-driven advertising. Some top beverage brands, for instance, have taken to using their own B2B apps – the online portals that restaurants, convenience stores and grocers use to select and restock drinks – as a leading signal on what kind of drinks are most popular at a local level. Using the data, brands can optimize campaigns to drive local foot traffic.

Must Read

Monopoly Man looks on at the DOJ vs. Google ad tech antitrust trial (comic).

2025: The Year Google Lost In Court And Won Anyway

From afar, it looks like Google had a rough year in antitrust court. But zoom in a bit and it becomes clear that the past year went about as well as Google could have hoped for.

Why 2025 Marked The End Of The Data Clean Room Era

A few years ago, “data clean rooms” were all the ad tech trades could talk about. Fast-forward to 2026, and maybe advertisers don’t need to know what a data clean room is after all.

The AI Search Reckoning Is Dismantling Open Web Traffic – And Publishers May Never Recover

Publishers have been losing 20%, 30% and in some cases even as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue over the past year due to the rise of zero-click AI search.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

No Waiting for May – CES Is Where The TV Upfront Season Starts 

If any single event can be considered the jumping-off point for TV upfronts, it’s the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), which kicks off this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Comic: This Is Our Year

Comic: This Is Our Year

It’s been 15 years since this comic first ran in January 2011, and there’s something both quaint and timeless about it. Here’s to more (and more) transparency in 2026, and happy New Year!

From AI To SPO: The Top 10 AdExchanger Guest Columns Of 2025

The generative AI trend generated endless hot takes this year, but the ad industry also had plenty to say about growing competition between DSPs and SSPs. Here are AdExchanger’s top 10 most popular guest columns of 2025 and why they resonated.