Nielsen, the global authority in audience measurement and analytics, and Roku, the dominant player in TV streaming platforms, have announced an expansion of their longstanding strategic partnership. This multi-year agreement builds on years of collaboration and aims to enhance the precision of campaign measurement across linear and streaming services by integrating Roku’s extensive data into Nielsen’s sophisticated solutions.
Streaming on Roku devices accounts for more than 21 percent of total TV viewing in the United States, highlighting the platform’s substantial influence on how audiences consume content. By incorporating Roku’s large-scale data, advertisers will gain a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of viewing habits across various services. Nielsen will continue to utilize this data as a key component in its Big Data + Panel methodology, which combines traditional panel insights with vast datasets to produce ratings for both linear television and streaming. This integration is expected to yield more reliable performance metrics for campaigns running on Roku and throughout the broader TV ecosystem.
The partnership also benefits Roku directly, granting the company access to Nielsen’s Streaming Platform Ratings. These ratings offer detailed insights into audience engagement with subscription-based and ad-supported streaming services. Notably, ad-supported streaming now represents approximately seven out of every ten hours spent streaming TV, underscoring a major shift in consumer preferences toward free, advertising-funded options. The Roku Channel, Roku’s own free ad-supported streaming television app, has capitalized on this trend, emerging as the second-largest app in terms of share of ad-supported TV viewing time.
This development aligns with Nielsen’s ongoing leadership in streaming measurement. The company regularly publishes influential reports such as The Gauge, which tracks monthly shifts in viewing across categories; the Media Distributor Gauge, focusing on platform performance; and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10, highlighting the most-watched streaming content. On average, Nielsen tracks over one trillion minutes of streaming viewing each month, demonstrating the massive scale of digital consumption it monitors.
The expanded collaboration addresses growing demands from marketers for granular, cross-platform analytics that can inform brand growth and campaign effectiveness. As ad-supported models gain traction, with platforms like The Roku Channel leading the way, the partnership positions both companies to deliver interoperable solutions in a fragmented media environment.
Nielsen has achieved several milestones this year that reinforce its position in audience measurement. Its Big Data + Panel approach recently received accreditation, following similar recognition for first-party live streaming integration in late 2024. Additionally, out-of-home measurement now encompasses the full contiguous U.S. television population. For the first time, Big Data + Panel data is serving as a currency in Upfront negotiations, where networks and advertisers plan major ad buys.
Overall, this deepened alliance between Nielsen and Roku reflects the rapid transformation of television from traditional broadcasts to streaming-dominated viewing. By combining Nielsen’s analytical expertise with Roku’s device-scale data and content offerings, the partnership promises to set new standards for accuracy and transparency in TV advertising, ultimately benefiting advertisers, publishers, and viewers in an increasingly digital-first world.
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