Counting eyes, not just screens: Nielsen’s new pitch

MUMBAI: When it comes to audience measurement, India might finally be ready to stop playing hide and seek. At the 9th edition of Vidnet 2025, Hemant Kewalya, India lead for audience measurement at Nielsen, made a spirited case for a tech-driven, unified system that can track today’s endlessly distracted viewers without missing a beat.

Kewalya opened with a reminder of how far the media has travelled. From newspapers to radio, television to mobile, and now a frenzy of OTT, digital and connected TV, the country’s content diet has exploded. Audiences hop from platform to platform faster than a thumb scroll, and Kewalya noted that while media has evolved, measurement has not kept pace. Instead, it has splintered into siloed systems that fail to tell a complete story.

He pointed out that traditional surveys, TV panels and digital analytics each work in isolation. Mobile data, connected TV signals and digital metrics still refuse to sit together at the same table, resulting in what he called an incomplete view of reach. Brands, therefore, rely on fragmented data while trying to optimise campaigns worth millions.

Kewalya outlined Nielsen’s approach to unifying this scattered information. The company now combines basic demographics, reach, frequency and impressions across devices and publishers in a single view. Marketers can also track brand lift, sales impact and creative attention to understand not just how many people were exposed to a campaign but whether it worked.

Future plans include a larger panel base, more app level detail and stronger links between different devices. Kewalya noted that privacy, data access and industry cooperation remain challenges, but said a unified system is essential as consumers rapidly shift between screens.

He closed by saying that while India has plenty of data, the real task is connecting it so that the industry can make clearer decisions.