Nielsen and Lionsgate Build a Rosetta Stone for TV Ratings

Nielsen and Lionsgate are rolling out a deal to unify audience measurement for the MovieSphere FAST channel and its new broadcast counterpart, MovieSphere Gold, creating a single currency for advertisers in a fragmented media world.

• A single lens: The first-of-its-kind partnership gives Lionsgate a unified way to see who is watching its content on both streaming and traditional broadcast. The company called the deal a "major competitive advantage" in understanding its audience across platforms.

• Riding the FAST wave: The initiative arrives as free, ad-supported TV explodes in popularity, now accounting for nearly 7% of all television viewing—a more than 400% increase over the last four years, according to Nielsen's own data. The new broadcast channel, MovieSphere Gold, brings popular library titles like 'The Hunger Games' to local airwaves and is already available in over 30 million homes.

As viewers continue to jump between streaming and linear TV, this partnership provides a template for how media companies can create a clearer, more valuable picture for advertisers who have been struggling to keep up.

The launch of Moviesphere Gold reveals a complex web of media partnerships involving players like Debmar-Mercury and Paramount's CBS Media Ventures. The deal also fits into Nielsen's larger effort to map the media world, which it details in its regular "The Gauge" reports, and the company took to platforms like LinkedIn to promote the new measurement deal.