FTC approves Nielsen’s sell-off of Arbitron LinkMeter tech

As well as acquiring the cross-platform audience measurement technology, comScore will also licence TV and radio data collected through the Portable People Meter technology.

Both pieces of kit were previously owned by Arbitron, up until the media research firm was acquired by Nielsen in a $1bn deal in September.

The sale and licencing agreements were stipulations laid down by the FTC, which was worried that Nielsen’s acquisition of Arbitron would lessen competition in the media measurement market.

In particular, the FTC wanted to ensure that initiatives like Project Blueprint – a multi-platform research collaboration between Arbitron and comScore, on behalf of the sports broadcaster ESPN – could continue.