Nielsen, about to revamp the way it measures TV viewing, said it is reorganizing the company into three units and put former COO Karthik Rao in charge of its audience measurement business.
Rao reports to Nielsen CEO David Kenny.
The reorganization follows the $16 billion sale of Nielsen to a consortium of private equity investors.
Nielsen confirmed the departure of several senior executives. As previously reported, chief commercial officer Peter Bradbury has left Nielsen. Also leaving are chief data and research officer Mainak Mazumdar, chief product officer Eric Bosco, chief human resources officer Laurie Lovett and chief growth officer Sean Cohan.
Mazumdar was a key figure in formulating Nielsen One, the new ratings system that will incorporate big data from set top boxes and smart TVs to better measure the multiple ways viewers are consuming video content.
Nielsen One is set to roll out January 11.
Nielsen has been facing increased competition with media companies testing or using currencies from a number of alternative measurement companies including iSpot.tv, Comscore and VideoAmp.
Nielsen has also faced criticism after it was determined that it undercounted TV viewership during the pandemic. The Media Rating Council has suspended its accreditation of Nielsen’s national and local measurement services.
Nielsen said that some of Mazumdar’s responsibilities will be filled by Pete Doe. Doe was senior VP for data science at Nielsen when he left in 2015. He joined Clypd as chief research officer and moved to Xandr as head of research in 2019.
Christine Pierce will be head of a new global data solutions group. She had been senior VP of U.S. media operations.
Doe and Pierce report to Rao.
Under the reorganization, Nielsen will also have an Nielsen Analytics unit and a Gracenote unit.
Nielsen analytics will be headed by Tina Wilson, now head of the company’s audience outcomes product.
Gracenote will be headed by Sujit Das Munshi, now chief content officer and head of operations. ■
