TV’s Latest Epic Battle: Upstart Audience Measurement Firms Take Aim at Nielsen’s Ratings Dominance

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The day after the Super Bowl typically brings with it another kind of celebration: Nielsen’s annual announcement of the size of the audience for the NFL extravaganza.

This year, someone stole some of the spotlight from the measurement giant with an end run. In the early afternoon hours of Feb.

12, iSpot, one of a handful of audience-measurement upstarts that are vying for business from many of Nielsen’s top clients, issued “preliminary audience measurement estimates” for Super Bowl viewership, projecting the Big Game had lured more than 126.6 million viewers across TV, linear, streaming and out of home watching.

Nielsen didn’t issue its estimate — more than 123.4 million viewers across linear and streaming — until well into the evening.