Media research has been roiled the past few weeks by a number of interesting developments. First Rentrak and comScore announced a merger clearly aimed at challenging Nielsen, which has long held an effective monopoly on TV ratings. Just hours later, Nielsen said it would roll out its combined TV-online ratings by year’s end, something media people have been clamoring for for months. It comes at a time when media research has never been so complicated, yet also never been so important. New ways of collecting data offer the promise of better targeting and more effective media planning, if only they can be harnessed. And wearables and smartphones have incredible promise for achieving something buyers have always hoped for: Apples-to-apples ratings comparisons across media. But all this will take a lot of time, which is frustrating for buyers, who feel as though they’ve already been waiting too long for research to catch up to changing media habits. Pete Doe, chief research officer at programmatic sales platform clypd and former senior vice president of data science at Nielsen, talks to Media Life about the future of measurement, how research has changed in recent years, and how the Rentrak-comScore deal could push Nielsen.

Read the full Q+A here.