Nielsen and Twitter Announce Rating Service

Nielsen and Twitter have reached a multi-year agreement to produce a new metric, the 'Nielsen Twitter TV Rating', for the US market, covering the reach on Twitter of conversation about TV programmes. The first figures will be commercially available from the fall of 2013.

The Rating is claimed as 'the first-ever measurement of the total audience for social TV activity - both those participating in the conversation and those who were exposed to the activity' - allowing unprecedented analysis of the effects of social media discussions on TV watching and vice versa.

The announcement comes just a month after the acquisition of social media TV conversation analyst SocialGuide by Nielsen and its McKinsey joint venture NM Incite; and the new service will be added to the SocialGuide offering. SocialGuide already captures Twitter TV activity for all US programming across 234 TV channels in English and Spanish, and more than 36,000 programs, classifying Tweets and matching them to TV programs to give metrics including the number of unique Tweets associated with a given program and rankings for the 'most social' TV programs.

Nielsen President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions Steve Hasker says the move is 'a significant step forward for the industry' and adds: 'As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data.'

Chloe Sladden, Twitter's Vice President of Media, comments: 'Twitter has become the world's digital water cooler, where conversations about TV happen in real time. Nielsen is who the networks rely on to give better content to viewers and clearer results to marketers. This effort reflects Nielsen's foresight into the evolving nature of the TV viewing experience, and we're looking forward to collaborating with Twitter ecosystem partners on this metric to help broadcasters and advertisers create truly social TV experiences.'

Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.twitter.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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