Nielsen, the monopolistic TV rating agency of choice, has decided to rebrand itself. The sheriff wants you to know that not only do they do TV ratings, but they do it all - web, print, you name it and they count the eyeballs. As Jossip points out, sometimes they do it a little poorly, but what are you gonna do about it? Hunh, tough guy?

The company plans on doing a little print, a little online, radio and mobile, newsstands and mailings to get the good word out. Nielsen will also be the sole advertiser for a special issue of The New York Times sports magazine, Play, which will be dedicated to the 2008 Olympic Games according to AdWeak. The total media spend for all this rebranding was not released, but consider that a centerfold insert of 8 pages, 4/4, at 50lb weight will run you a cool $507,660 (pre-haggling) in the regular NYT's mag.
Play boasts of having 6 million Sunday print/online New York Times readers who have a median HHI of $96,662. They obviously picked a good issue to buy into. We might even thumb through that one and the last time we ran was in a high school lacrosse game. Varsity, bitches. Varsity.

Hey! They're also Nielsen. With all that data they own, they must be certain that Play is the best buy in town. Hey everybody! Go buy into Play right now. Nielsen couldn't possibly be shaky on how many people actually read the magazine and absorb the ads. Not. Possible.