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The Nielsen Company (VNU) profile and media properties

   


David Calhoun is the CEO of The Nielsen Company (VNU).

Formerly known as VNU Group B.V., The Nielsen Company is a large information and media company with operations worldwide. The company provides its clients with business information and business-to-business tools including market research, media research, database marketing services, business publications and trade shows.

In March 2006, VNU N.V. was acquired by Valcon Acquisitions, formed by a group of six private equity companies including AlpInvest Partners N.V., The Blackstone Group L.P., The Carlyle Group L.P., Hellman & Friedman LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. and Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P.. The purchase price was approximately $10.3 billion.

Since 1964, VNU expanded from a Dutch publishing firm to an international conglomerate. Today, The Nielsen Company operates in three core segments: marketing information, media measurement & information and business information.

As one of the world's largest market research companies, The Nielsen Company operates AC Nielsen, the leader in packaged goods market research. Four VNU companies are involved in the analysis of market research data -- BASES, Claritas, HCI and Spectra.

The Nielsen Company is a global leader in media research through its subsidiary Nielsen Media Research, which measures TV usage of households and individuals. Worldwide, the company measures the viewing habits of more than half the world's population and provides information on 85% of the world's advertising spending. The Nielsen//NetRatings division collects data on Internet usage worldwide.

The Nielsen Company provides a range of entertainment information services covering motion pictures, home entertainment, music and publishing. Nielsen EDI tracks box-office receipts from more than 50,000 movie screens. Another unit, Nielsen NRG, is Hollywood's leading market research and consulting firm. Nielsen ReelResearch tests TV program and advertising material. Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen VideoScan and Nielsen BookScan track and report retail sales of audio and video entertainment products and books.

Nielsen media solutions include software, systems and tools for analyzing advertising data and planning media campaigns in the US. This division contains a number companies: SRDS, Scarborough and PERQ/HCI.

The trade magazine publishing division, Nielsen Business Media, once published over 100 magazine titles, including Adweek and Billboard magazines. However Nielsen began shutting down the division in December 2009, and has announced it is leaving the trade magazine publishing business.

VNU Expositions holds a leading position in the trade show industry, running 150 trade exhibitions.

The Nielsen Company's headquarters are located in New York, USA. The company operates in over 100 countries worldwide.

Contact Information

Web Site:www.nielsen.com
Telephone:646.654.5000
Address:770 Broadway
New York NY 10003
USA

Media Subsidiaries

Other The Nielsen Company (VNU) Properties


AC Nielsen
BASES
Claritas
IMS
Nielsen BookScan
Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen/NRG
Nielsen ReelResearch
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen VideoScan
PERQ/HCI
Scarborough
Spectra
SRDS
VNU Expositions

Comments about The Nielsen Company (VNU)

Comments to date: 3. The most recent comments are below.

Media Owners editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 12:06pm on Tuesday, October 12, 2010

'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web

-- The Wall Street Journal reported on October 12, 2010:

"At 1 a.m. on May 7, the website PatientsLikeMe.com noticed suspicious activity on its "Mood" discussion board. There, people exchange highly personal stories about their emotional disorders, ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves.

It was a break-in. A new member of the site, using sophisticated software, was "scraping," or copying, every single message off PatientsLikeMe's private online forums.

PatientsLikeMe managed to block and identify the intruder: The Nielsen Company, the privately held New York media-research firm. Nielsen monitors online "buzz" for clients, including major drug makers, which buy data gleaned from the Web to get insight from consumers about their products, Nielsen says.

"I felt totally violated," says Bilal Ahmed, a 33-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia, who used PatientsLikeMe to connect with other people suffering from depression. He used a pseudonym on the message boards, but his PatientsLikeMe profile linked to his blog, which contains his real name.

After PatientsLikeMe told users about the break-in, Mr. Ahmed deleted all his posts, plus a list of drugs he uses. "It was very disturbing to know that your information is being sold," he says. Nielsen says it no longer scrapes sites requiring an individual account for access, unless it has permission."

The full story:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703358504575544381288117888.html


Dave Horchak    BHC AZ

Posted at 8:51am on Friday, July 25, 2008

I had the same thing happen to me. I reported it and never heard back. Considering what they have allowed to happen to E&P I am not surprised.


John Austin    Flatwoods

Posted at 11:37am on Friday, June 13, 2008

In the future, would you ever participate in these forms of market research?

After I answered these questions on the above post, the next page came up as an error. I didn't do this for free and it irritates me very bad that I spent all that time only for it to screw up. :[
I expect/better to get the 35$ for all the time spent watching those 2 shows and spending all this time doing the survey.........
John Austin
2005 Washington St
Flatwoods, KY 41139


Nielsen ReelResearch
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