A one-time shift in viewership activity—especially this February, when NBC had the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the NBA All-Star game—wouldn’t ordinarily lead to so much handwringing. However, the gap was so stark that executives are questioning whether the new dataset is entirely responsible. Would a retroactive analysis of consumer behavior reveal that streaming audiences had been overcounted by Nielsen to this point?

At least according to the data, streaming’s share of household CTV viewing has nearly doubled in terms of overall engagement over the past four years—and at the end of last year, it accounted for 47.5 percent of all TV viewing. Last year was also the first time that streaming surpassed cable and broadcast as the top TV medium. Advertiser dollars followed, with the Interactive Advertising Bureau projecting that digital video, including streaming, will make up more than half of all TV advertising spend this year. CTV spend alone grew 16 percent last year, the bureau found. (You can see why the linear folks are pissed…) Meanwhile, newer measurement companies, like VideoAmp and iSpot TV, which may offer more holistic approaches to tallying viewership, are gaining ground. In short, it’s no exaggeration to call this an existential moment for Nielsen.

Executives on both the streaming and linear sides have always had one issue or another with Nielsen’s methodology, but they’ve become more vocal as the Gauge has become a ubiquitous narrative device for courting advertisers. Back in 2023, a few years after Nielsen launched the Gauge, analysts questioned the wisdom of removing viewership for virtual TV distributors from the streaming category—which, obviously, led to a drop. But that’s merely one issue that analysts and executives, who rely on Nielsen reporting for their own roadshows with advertising clients, have cited over the years.

Another is a lack of transparency around engagement for individual streaming services. Of course, this has become a bigger issue as companies like Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, and Paramount combine their platforms. More recently, many have quietly wondered why YouTube—which continues to dominate the Gauge chart, and has become a hyperfixation on Madison Avenue—doesn’t have its individual channels broken out via other Nielsen reports. (The thinking goes: If YouTube is truly so dominant, wouldn’t you expect some of its most popular channels to crack a top 10 list here and there?)

Sure, analysts have more data than ever from third-party vendors, and new A.I. products have helped accelerate and expand their research. But the glut of data usually leaves people more confused about actual insights. In the absence of truly reliable approaches to measurement, Nielsen should be well positioned to remain the industry’s North Star. However, if the distrust continues to grow, and advertisers, streamers, and linear channels look to other data sources for their own needs, then a unified understanding of what people are watching and where they’re watching may disappear. Apparently, even Nielsen isn’t safe from the TV industry’s fragmentation.