Mumbai, March 4 -- In an era where media consumption is more fragmented than ever, Nielsen, a company that has long been synonymous with audience measurement, finds itself in a race to keep up. Karthik Rao, chief executive of Nielsen, acknowledges the reality check: "The revelation was not about the media landscape-it was about what we need to do to keep pace and get ahead. The velocity to keep up is probably the single biggest challenge."

Despite growing competition and big tech firms consolidating audience data, Nielsen still holds relevance, according to Rao. "We provide the best measure of what audiences are doing in terms of consuming content and ads. We provide the best metadata to create discovery experiences. Those things endure....