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 for television as founder of the
A.C. Nielsen Company.
Background
Arthur Charles Nielsen was born in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
. Nielsen was educated at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
, where he received a B.S., summa cum laude in electrical engineering
in 1918. He was a member of
Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society), the
Sigma Phi Society
The Sigma Phi Society () was founded on the Fourth of March in the year 1827, on the campus of Union College as a part of the Union Triad in Schenectady, New York. It is the second Greek fraternal organization founded in the United States. and a captain of the
varsity tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
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 company in 1923, and in doing so advanced the new field of
market research
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mar ...
. This involved: (1.)
test market
A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale roll-out. The criteria used to judge the acceptabilit ...
ing new products to determine their viability prior to costly
mass marketing
Mass marketing is a marketing strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and appeal the whole market with one offer or one strategy, which supports the idea of broadcasting a message that will reach the largest number o ...
and production; and (2.) measuring product sales at a
random sample
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 atte ...
of stores to determine
market share. Careful
statistical sampling was crucial to this process. The techniques developed by Nielsen were especially important for the efficient operation of a
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
prior to the introduction of computerized
digital networks 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
A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...
programs, most notably the
Nielsen ratings.
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
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an indo ...
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, ''Ridder af Dannebrog'' (1961) by the government of
Denmark
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, establish ...
.
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
Winnetka () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located north of downtown Chicago. The population was 12,316 as of 2019. The village is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of household income. It was the second- ...
, is named after him.
ACNielsen Jr.
Nielsen's oldest son had four siblings. He graduated from the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
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
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
as having institutionalized his father's innovations, including "urging" the company to purchase a $150,000 Univac
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...
computer in 1948.
Professional recognition
*Annual Advertisement Awards Committee, 1936
*Chicago Federated Advertisements Club, 1941
* American Marketing Association, 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