New System To Measure Out Of Home TV Viewing
A new audience measurement system that will enable the measurement of television viewing figures on the internet, mobile phones and even in bars, is being planned in the US by TV audience tracker Nielsen Media Research and sister company Netratings.
The move could bring major changes to the television and advertising industries as people increasingly watch shows outside the home or on mobile devices.
The new testing expands the use of electronic metering to smaller TV markets and could also dramatically change the way viewing figures are tallied. This could result in major shifts in the way advertising budgets are spent.
The new plan by Nielsen is called Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement, or A2/M2. It will roll out over the next few years, starting with test programmes in the US as soon as this summer.
“A2/M2 is the result of extensive consultation with clients, who told us clearly that we should ‘follow the video’ and deliver integrated measurement of all television-like content regardless of platform,” said Nielsen Media Research chief executive Susan Whiting in a statement.
As soon as next year, Nielsen will begin installing software on computers owned by sample audiences who now have its People Meters linked to their televisions. The goal is to create a single group that will measure combined TV and web viewing.
Nielsen hopes to have this new system fully in Stateside homes for the 2007/2008 broadcast season, which starts in September 2007. To help launch its effort, Nielsen/Netratings will begin offering combined, or “fused,” data to clients this summer. By 2011, Nielsen also hopes to have replaced paper diaries and logs in smaller cities with electronic meters.
The company continues to work on devices that will measure viewership on new portable devices such as mobile phones and Apple’s video Ipod. It expects to create a 400-person panel of Ipod users by the end of this year.
Nielsen is unrivalled in the States for its scope of TV viewership research, and it counts all major US networks as its clients. Nielsen and VNU own the majority of web traffic tracker NetRatings Inc., and their venture Nielsen/NetRatings is supplying Internet data.
Nielsen//NetRatings: 01865 732 388 www.nielsennetratings.com