Nielsen Tries to Measure TV Everywhere...

Ok, this may be news to some, though not ICN readers who have had plenty of warning things were going in this direction (this, this, and this). The New York Times Brian Stelter writes about a major change coming to Nielsen’s measurement system…

For media executives, there may be nothing worse than a viewer or listener who is not counted.

On Thursday, in a move that might help ease those concerns, Nielsen said that it would start considering Americans who have spurned cable, but who have a television set hooked up to the Internet, as “television households,” potentially adding to the sample of homes that are rated by the company, the standard for television ratings. In front of skeptical network officials, the company pledged to measure TV viewership on iPads and other mobile devices in the future.

Those executives have a gnawing feeling that their consumers are being missed more and more often. As new pipelines open up for viewers and listeners through social media, mobile apps and game consoles, advertisers fret that they don’t know how many people are really seeing their ads, television networks fear they’re not getting credit for getting those people to tune in and record companies wonder how they can keep up with all the ways their customers consume music.

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