Nielsen firms up plans for single-source media measurement

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Nielsen Media is adding Internet measurement to its national people-meter television ratings panel, a move that is part of its goal to create a single-source media measurement system.

In a letter to Nielsen clients, which includes just about every major media company, Nielsen said it will begin installing meters that will measure both Internet and TV viewing later this month and hoped to be finished by August 2010.

The push by Nielsen to beef up its measurement process comes just a few months after a group of major media companies, including News Corp., Viacom, CBS, NBC Universal and Walt Disney Co., said they were teaming up to develop new methods to measure how people consume media. Calling themselves the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, the group is launching a research fund, although it has insisted that it is not necessarily looking to build a competitor to Nielsen.

Currently, Nielsen has people meters in about 18,000 homes. Those meters provide the ratings responsible for billions of dollars in ad sales. As more and more people start to watch content online, on sites such as Hulu or YouTube, content providers and distributors want more detailed numbers to sell advertising. Nielsen measures online usage in a separate sample that tracks about 200,000 people.

-- Joe Flint