Legal Breather and CEO Change for HyphaMetrics

Former HyphaMetrics CEO Joanna Drews is returning to the role, a year and a half after relinquishing it to Chris Wilson, as the US-based audience measurement company gets a break from legal challenges with the dismissal of a Nielsen patent lawsuit against it.

HyphaMetrics was launched three and a half years ago by Drews (pictured) and Michael Bologna - the pair had worked previously at GroupM and Comscore. The firm use a proprietary panel of 5,000 homes to track viewing across devices, then licenses the data to ad currency providers like Comscore and VideoAmp. The latter is also the subject of a legal dispute with Nielsen launched in February and concerning patents for the correction of viewing data skewed by 'phantom' or 'zombie' viewing.

Nielsen launched the Hypha lawsuit a year after the firm launched, suing it and fellow audience measurement firm TVision, claiming separate patent infringements. At the time, Nielsen cited Hypha's partnership with VideoAmp as evidence of harm, claiming Hypha's infringing measurement tech was a factor in securing the partnership and stating in remarks made to web site www.adexchanger.com : 'we will not support businesses appropriating our intellectual property without authorization'.

Now AdExchanger reports that Nielsen 'voluntarily and quietly dropped its complaint last month, likely a sign that it lacked sufficient evidence to prove infringement' - and giving Hypha what it calls 'a brief break from battling' the ratings giant. Drews told the web site: 'Multiyear lawsuits are a drop in the bucket for an incumbent monopoly, but a huge financial undertaking for a smaller company like us' - but later added for the future that 'We're more than willing and eager to sell our data to Nielsen, or any currency provider'.

Meanwhile Wilson, a former Comscore CCO appointed in February 2023, has resigned the CEO position and Drews is stepping up again from President. Wilson will continue to advise the company and on LinkedIn said that having taken the role 'to move the company forward from its product-market-fit stage to a market expansion strategy' he believes the team has 'accomplished what we set out to do when I joined'. He adds: 'now it is time for me to turn my attention to new ventures'.

HyphaMetrics has also appointed Brian Norris, currently EVP and CRO of E.W. Scripps and a veteran of NBCUniversal and Dish, as a Board Director.

Web site: www.hyphametrics.com .