Arthur Charles Nielsen Sr. (September 5, 1897 – June 1, 1980) was an American businessman, electrical engineer and market research analyst who created and tracked the

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

for television as founder of the A.C. Nielsen Company.

Background

Arthur Charles Nielsen was born in Chicago, Illinois. Nielsen was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a B.S., summa cum laude in electrical engineering in 1918. He was a member of

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

(engineering honor society), the Sigma Phi Society and a captain of the

varsity Varsity may refer to: *University, an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines Places *Varsity, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada * Varsity Lakes ...

tennis team from 1916 to 1918. He subsequently served in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Career

Nielsen worked as an electrical engineer for the Isko Company from 1919 to 1920 and for the H. P. Gould Company, both in Chicago, from 1920 to 1923. He founded the

ACNielsen The Nielsen Corporation, self-referentially known as The Nielsen Company, and formerly known as ACNielsen or AC Nielsen, is a global marketing research firm, with worldwide headquarters in New York City, United States. Regional headquarters for ...

company in 1923, and in doing so advanced the new field of market research. This involved: (1.) test marketing new products to determine their viability prior to costly mass marketing and production; and (2.) measuring product sales at a random sample of stores to determine

market share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...

. Careful

statistical sampling In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attem ...

was crucial to this process. The techniques developed by Nielsen were especially important for the efficient operation of a market prior to the introduction of computerized

digital network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are m ...

s that in the 1990s enabled continuous and comprehensive monitoring of sales by product retailers. Nielsen was also a pioneer in developing methods of measuring the audience of radio and television broadcasting programs, most notably the

. Nielsen inaugurated a National Radio Index for broadcasters and advertisers in 1942, followed by a television ratings service in 1950. By the time of his death, the company's revenue was US$398 million annually.

Personal life

With his son Arthur Nielsen Jr. he won the U.S. Father and Son doubles tennis titles in 1946 and 1948. He was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 for his contributions to the sport. The University of Wisconsin awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science (ScD) in 1974. Nielsen was appointed a Knight of the

Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known a ...

, ''Ridder af Dannebrog'' (1961) by the government of Denmark. Nielsen and his wife Gertrude (also a Wisconsin grad; d.1998) donated the Nielsen Tennis Stadium to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1990, the A.C. Nielsen family made a donation to UW-Madison to establish th
A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Analytics and Insights
which provides MBA, MS, and certificate programs in marketing research, consumer insights, and analytics. It is the only full-time market research program in the United States. A small tennis center in Winnetka, Illinois, is named after him.

ACNielsen Jr.

Nielsen's oldest son had four siblings. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin and married Patricia McKnew; the couple had two sons, Arthur II and Chris, and a daughter. Jr. died in 1980, his wife in 2005. They had seven grandchildren. Arthur Charles Nielsen Jr was described by The New York Times as having institutionalized his father's innovations, including "urging" the company to purchase a $150,000 Univac computer in 1948.

Professional recognition

*Annual Advertisement Awards Committee, 1936 *Chicago Federated Advertisements Club, 1941 *

American Marketing Association The American Marketing Association (AMA) is a professional association for marketing professionals with 30,000 members as of 2012. It has 76 professional chapters and 250 collegiate chapters across the United States. The AMA was formed in from th ...

, 1951 and 1970 *Hall of Fame in Distribution in 1953 *International Advertisement Association, 1966

References

External links

A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Research

International Tennis Hall of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nielsen, Arthur 1897 births 1980 deaths Advertising theorists American chief executives in the media industry American electrical engineers American company founders American marketing businesspeople American mass media company founders American people of Danish descent Businesspeople from Chicago International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog Market researchers University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni Engineers from Illinois 20th-century American engineers American male tennis players 20th-century American businesspeople