Any article that speculates about the possibility of Nielsen's downfall – in headline-ending-with-a-question-mark form – is a friend of ours. After all, we waste no fewer than 1,000 words a week on the subject. So there goes AdAge's Brian Steinberg with "Can Nielsen Still Reign Supreme?" It's a storied look at Nielsen's 1950s beginnings to where it stands today: Trying to get its hands in every audience measurement medium possible, going beyond TV ratings and into video game and YouTube consumption. Providing this data to advertisers is big business, mostly because the P&Gs of the world spend billions without any absolute, concrete evidence its campaign messages turn into sales. It's Nielsen's job to convince them they're doing the right thing.

The money involved here explains the rush of upstarts looking to throw a dodgeball through Nielsen's picket fence; TNS, TiVo, and Rentrak are all getting in the biz of monitoring audiences. Nielsen remains (blindly?) confident it can remain the industry leader; it's doing its park by snapping up competitor IAG. And the increased competition, while theoretically great for accuracy, is bad for media buyers — now they have to figure out whose data to pay for, and whose data to trust. We'll give 'em a hint: Your current method is a hoax.