Measurement Currencies

For most of the last sixty years, “TV currency” had a single answer: Nielsen. The panel-based ratings firm sat between every advertiser and every broadcaster, and its numbers were the agreed truth that determined what an impression was worth and whether a campaign had delivered. That arrangement is over.

The post-monopoly market has three distinct tiers. The first is the incumbent — Nielsen — which in January 2025 won MRC accreditation for its hybrid Big Data + Panel methodology, the first person-level hybrid product to clear that bar, and is staging the full Nielsen ONE cross-platform rebuild on top of it. The second is the U.S. Joint Industry Committee’s certified alt-currency cohort — Comscore, iSpot.tv, and VideoAmp — each of which has cleared the JIC’s 699-test transactability audit and now holds active currency contracts with Paramount, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, and the major holding companies. VideoAmp alone closed 2024 at roughly $3 billion in guaranteed currency transactions, an 880% year-over-year jump that defines what mass adoption of an alt-currency now looks like in dollar terms.

The third tier is structurally different. Attention-based currencies — Adelaide’s AU metric, TVision’s person-level attention panels (now inside Viant after the 2024 acquisition) — don’t compete with Nielsen on reach-and-frequency reconciliation. They sit alongside it as a quality signal, transacted through programmatic CTV private marketplaces and attention-guaranteed deals rather than as the primary upfront currency.

Looming over all three tiers is Aquila, the for-profit entity the ANA spun out of its Cross-Media Measurement initiative in 2024. With Kantar operating the single-source calibration panel, Samba TV providing streaming-video data, and a stated 2026 full-launch target, Aquila is the buy-side’s bid to build a measurement infrastructure it owns rather than rents. Whether it ships on time, and whether the holdcos that funded it actually transact on it once it does, is the open question that will shape the next phase of the multi-currency market.