Nielsen To Track Cross-Platform TV Programming

Surprise--Nielsen to Track Cross-Platform TV Programming!
by Cory Treffiletti, Wednesday, Jun 28, 2006 11:45 AM ET

DO YOU READ A LOT about our industry? If you read this column, I assume
you must read a bunch, because I'm not nearly arrogant enough to assume
I'm the first thing you read each Wednesday. Assuming you read as much
as I do, then you might be just as surprised as I was to hear that
Nielsen announced plans last week to begin measuring how consumers watch
television programming on the Web, cell phones and iPods as well as all
other digital devices. This all comes as a part of their Anytime

videonovels...

.

Devil's Advocate:

The networks will use the new numbers to say, "Look we lost 10 million
people to illegal downloading. We're losing money."

Anywhere Measurement Model, which includes the People Meter and a number
of other initiatives. Personally I found this to be an extremely

akjack...

How can the practice be called "illegal downloading" when the networks
enable it and charge a download fee?

videonovels...

.

I was referring to Nielsen's tracking of downloads off "free" sites
like ipodnova or demonioid. These stats would provide fuel for the
networks fight against those types of sites.

newsworthy note, but it was buried as a two-paragraph article on page 24
of Adweek. If I ran a magazine, this would be right out there on page one!

akjack...

The only "free" site I noted in the article was ABC.COM. I might have
missed the mentions, but I didn't see any reference to ipodnova or
demonioid download tracking by Nielsen.

There was mention of downloads from ABC.COM not being tracked.

Nielsen's viewer data has always been extrapolated by concerned
parties. It's doubtful that "illegal downloading" data can be
derived from Nielsen numbers.

The decision to start tracking television programming across all these
platforms is one that I have been waiting for since last Oct. 25, when
the press first picked up on the announcement of the video iPod. That
date was pivotal and will be a date I remember for years to come because
it signaled a massive change in the consumer model for programming.
Since that date, the on-demand content model has jumped forward by leaps
and bounds--but I didn't expect the Nielsen announcement for at least
another six months.

The implications of this announcement for advertisers are actually quite
large. First and foremost, this signals a potentially dramatic change in
the upfronts as early as next year, because the networks will be capable
of selling advertising space across multiple platforms with built-in
accountability. For example, my addiction to "Lost" as a consumer can
easily be fueled across platforms, but advertisers had no idea how to
reach me this past season. I rarely watched the show on TV; I only
watched it on iTunes or ABC.com. "Lost" was the No. 10 show on
television last season (according to Nielsen as of the week of 5/14/06);
however, this did not take into account the downloads on ABC.com (rumors
were that around 5 millions viewers had watched portions of the show on
the site by that same week), nor did it take into account that episodes
of "Lost" were ranked at number 1, 5, 11, 14, 15 and 20 on the list of
most popular video downloads on iTunes at that same time (5/14/06). In
total, "Lost" was certainly better than No. 10--and had a substantially
larger audience than the Nielsen estimate of 10.6 million viewers.

An advertiser could not only reach a larger audience by placing its ads
across platform, but would have more accurate numbers reflecting the
actual views and the specific audience viewing them. With digital media,
we can embed a tag at certain intervals through the programming that
guarantee actual viewing by the audience--plus, we can amass more data
on who the audience is, where they are viewing the program, how many
times they view the program, etc. For an advertiser, this is extremely
valuable--and for the networks, this is a premium audience which they
can sell for their programs and encourages them to make these programs
available across formats. If you thought there was any hindrance to the
growth of the on-demand model in the next few years, this announcement
removed all doubts.

So why was this buried so deeply in the magazine? My only guess is that
it wasn't thought out well enough--or else Nielsen requested this to not
be a huge story. I'm sure there will be holes poked in their methodology
over the coming months, but I truly hope they pursue its launch. A
little information can go a long way here, and I applaud Nielsen for
taking the initiative to develop this product.

[
If anything, this may be an incentive for the networks to follow the
pioneers like "Lost" and create more cross-platform programs.
]