Roku to acquire Nielsen video ad business

The AVA business includes Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies. The transaction is expected to complete in the second quarter of 2021, and the financial terms have not been disclosed.

The acquisition will pave the way for a strategic partnership integrating Nielsen advertising and content measurement tools into Roku’s platform and supporting Nielsen’s cross-media measurement product One.

Roku will also accelerate its launch of an end-to-end DAI tool for television programmers, and the two companies will enter into a long-term commercial agreement over the use of Nielsen Total Ad Ratings on the Roku platform.

Specifically, Roku’s media sales and ad-buying platform, OneView, will integrate with Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings for advertisers, and Roku will enable publishers to use Nielsen Digital Content Ratings.

The partnership between the two companies will add a further 100m devices to those on which Nielsen can enable media sellers and buyers to measure addressable advertising.

Louqman Parampath, vice-president of Product Management at Roku, said: “Combining Nielsen’s AVA technology with Roku’s innovative ad tech and scale will enable us to deliver the benefits of TV streaming advertising to traditional TV.

“We’re also excited to become a key strategic partner for Nielsen in their new cross-media measurement products, and jointly drive towards greater transparency and accuracy in TV streaming measurement.”

Scott Brown, general manager, audience measurement, at Nielsen, said: “The measurement of ads and content on Roku devices will accelerate the path to a single, deduplicated cross-media currency.”