Metrics to be used by all TV and Radio stations

Nielsen and Cox Media Group said they signed a multi-year renewal of their TV and audio measurement agreement.

The new contract covers all of Cox Media Group’s television and radio stations, plus CoxReps and Videa.

The deal comes at a time when Nielsen’s local market business is under pressure from Comscore, which in recent months has made deals with station group owners Nexstar and Gray Television. Nielsen was also engaged in a long face-off with CBS, which was out of contract for nearly two weeks earlier this month before a deal was struck.

“We are pleased to continue our relationship with Nielsen as an integral part of our business," said Kim Guthrie, president, Cox Media Group. “By partnering together, we combine our unique business knowledge with Nielsen’s suite of data, products, and insights, to build solutions that maximize advertising results for our customers.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Cox Media Group is a pre-eminent integrated media company that has a strong record of driving business results for advertisers of all types and sizes,” said Megan Clarken, president, Watch, Nielsen. “We are excited to renew our partnership and look forward to working with Cox to help them maximize results for their advertisers by leveraging Nielsen’s suite of gold-standard measurement services.”

Last year, Nielsen said it began delivering 12 months of electronic measurement across all local markets. The new methodology, dubbed RPD+, uses Return Path Data from various providers across 137 markets, 15,000 newly installed local household meters, and 750 in-market National People Meter (NPM) households.