SAG-AFTRA Will Use Nielsen Data to Enforce Studio Streaming Contract

SAG-AFTRA will license Nielsen‘s streaming content data, which the union will to enforce the terms of its 2023 contract with Hollywood studios.

Under the deal for Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings, SAG-AFTRA will have “an objective source of domestic viewership data for original streaming programming,” the parties announced. The data will inform the union’s forecasting and enforcement efforts around the new terms of the streaming bonus provisions of the 2023 TV/Theatrical Contract.

SAG-AFTRA’s deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, reached in December 2023 after a 118-day strike, includes a $40 million residual bonus pool for actors on streaming shows in the first year of the agreement. That is significantly less than the union originally was seeking — which at one point was $500 million per year.

The AMPTP deal with SAG-AFTRA provides a 75% residual bonus for actors who appear on the most-watched made-for-streaming shows. Another 25% — or about $10 million in the first year — will go into a Success Bonus Distribution Fund, which will distribute the money more broadly to actors on other made-for-streaming series.

“New business models require new tools, and that’s why we’ve enlisted Nielsen,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator. “The information they provide will give us the means to cross-check the data streamers give us and ensure employers are fulfilling their contractual obligations to our members.”

According to the union, Nielsen’s data will complement first-party data from streaming platforms and serve as a consistent and comparable lens through which the performance of streaming titles across various distribution platforms can be analyzed.

Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said in a statement, “The rapid evolution of the media landscape and audience behaviors over the past decade has not only affected how content is consumed and measured, but also greatly impacts the financial models on which the entertainment industry operates. We are incredibly proud that SAG-AFTRA has chosen Nielsen as the source for objective and consistent audience measurement insights in the streaming space.”