I was excited because I skimmed the headline and thought Nielsen Wire had posted some analysis on Video On Demand usage, but instead it was a marketing message aimed at calming an unsettled customer base:
At Nielsen, OnDemand Online and TV Everywhere are examples of what we refer to as the “Extended Screen” — initiatives that treat the computer as another screen in the home used to watch television. In fact, we’re already working to capture television viewing that takes place online and to add that viewing back in to the ratings. That includes in our National C3 ratings.
How will we be able to do this? It’s all part of our Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative. Nielsen has developed an Internet software meter that uses the same technology to measure video viewing online as the Nielsen Active/Passive (A/P) Meter does for television. We’ve currently installed this Internet software meter among 375 homes in our National People Meter panel, allowing us to evaluate the measurement of Internet usage alongside TV usage. Given that more than $70 billion of television advertising is bought and sold using Nielsen ratings, we are careful not to take any actions that would dilute the reliability of the core television ratings data. Consequently, we are undertaking an extensive evaluation program before fully integrating television and Internet measurement.
What does any of this change?
For now, nothing. In the future? My best guess is this doesn’t change anything really, except for PR people who will potentially be able to ultimately report bigger numbers. And that’s assuming these number make it into the wild anytime soon, and I’d be surprised if that is the case. Overnight reports will still come out, and they will not include any of the data from online viewing (because it won’t be available yet!) and even if and when it is available sometime in 2011 or beyond, online streaming still won’t be baked into the overnight numbers.
Nielsen’s intentions sound really good in theory. In practice, however, outside of PR for the television networks, I’m not so sure. The commercial loads are so different between broadcast and online streaming they will result in a mix of apples and oranges at worst, and and a mix of apples and pears at best.
But the one very interesting piece of this…
It’s in the blurb I cited above, but it is worth repeating:
Nielsen has developed an Internet software meter that uses the same technology to measure video viewing online as the Nielsen Active/Passive (A/P) Meter does for television.
This is critical because it allows full tracking of not only what was watched, but who was watching (age, gender, income, where the live, etc) a critical ingredient to advertisers that is missing from most reporting of online viewing that we’ve seen.
Depending on whether and how the online viewing get incorporated into the weekly Nielsen reporting, we might get our first look at how online shows perform. Even if it winds up lagging behind like DVR viewing by a few weeks, it will still be useful information. Though it will likely just get dumped into the season-to-date info as Live+7 numbers now are, and will make any historical comparisons more difficult for us.
Nielsen has the worse and most ineffective ratings system ever. They can’t even touch YouTube’s ratings system. Put a damn chip in people’s boxes you stupid ——!!!!
“Put a damn chip in people’s boxes”
… and that’s how the New World Order begins…
Not only a chip, but some sort of “room sensor” would be needed that can discern the demographics of the individual(s) watching. We would essentially need a chip on each viewer that could be read by the sensor. Not sure how many people would want to partipate in that.
Don’t worry. Soon TVs will come equipped with bar code scanners and we’ll just have to scan ourselves after the mass tattooing of 2015 happens.
Its the end of the world as we know it Its the end of the World as we know it
2012 apocolypse! Mandatory tatooing for the survivors. Nielsen problem solved!
couldnt they have done this sooner like when prison break was still on
sabah, there’s very little chance that this will actually do anything but look good in press releases. So don’t get too upset.
sabah, it goes without saying that any new counting method is sure to help shows *you* liked, but leave the counts for all others unchanged
@Donovan146 – Simply counting cable boxes doesn’t tell you anything.
It doesn’t say how many people were actually watching a program: Was anyone actually in the room? Was the cable box simply left on while the TV was off?
It doesn’t tell you the demographic breakdown: That TV watching Spongebob, was it the parents or the kids watching?
It doesn’t tell you time-delayed info (unless built into the box, of course – but the demographic questions apply there as well): If the cable box was on for the Tivo to pick up, when was the show watched? Was it at all, or simply deleted for space a couple weeks later? Did they fast forward through commercials?
It doesn’t tell you what else was going on at the time: Were they typing away on Facebook or some computer game at the time?
All cable boxes tell you is that some number of households may have been receiving the signal at the time. That’s it.
Obviously, the ideal polling system would be some sort of glasses/hat/circlet/etc., that everyone in the house needs to wear at all times, that sends a signal to the monitoring box only when it has Line-of-Sight (also needs to somehow store movement/position data such that you can determine (and remove) when someone just leaves the circlet on a table, etc.)
The logistics, technology, and morality of such a system are all lacking. So Nielsen is frankly better than what we have, including raw cable box counts.
*LOL* This is hilarious! Come on, people! Think about what Nielsen would end up really monitoring? Come on. Give it a second. Think about it. *LOL*
For those of you who live in nunneries or monasteries, I’ll help you out. PORN! Yes, PORN! What Nielsen will find out is which of the free porn sites is the most popular. Is it RedTube, Spankwire, YouPorn, XTube, or some other free porn site? Anyone care to take bets? Robert and Bill, care to set up a poll to see which we think will get the top rating nod?
Now seriously, because people watch most of their porn on their computers these days, how will Nielsen deal with that activity? Would it report on it? If it doesn’t, how doesn’t it? Will there be just a generic category of “adult entertainment” that Nielsen doesn’t break down any further? Or will it be like a prude and just not include those numbers at all?
And then think of how many people would actually opt-in for Nielsen monitoring their online porn activity. How would most handle it? Only let Nielsen put the software on the computer they know they’ll not be watching porn on? Demand a opt-out switch/button for when they don’t want Nielsen monitoring their internet activity (a.k.a. online porn activity)? I wonder how many will volunteer without thinking this all the way through but then come late at night and they’re wanting to watch that orgy video clip, they going, “Oh shit!” and then wondering how to turn off the damn Nielsen software. *LOL*