Nielsen Watching Google

Last week DRNO covered a report looking at Google and the 'threat' it poses to the publishing and information industry. This week the concern is even closer to home, as the world's biggest research firm ponders the intentions of the search giant.

Nielsen announced respectable full year results yesterday. In a conference call to discuss them, CFO Brian West was asked about speculation surrounding Google's interest in TV audience measurement, based on its recent tie-up with satellite TV firm EchoStar.

West, who spent sixteen years in senior financial positions at GE before replacing Ruijter as Nielsen CFO in February (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6485.htm ), was happy to acknowledge the possibility of competition from Google: 'People want to get into this space because it's big. Television advertising is about $70bn - many times bigger than Internet [advertising]. So you can understand, at least, Google's motivation...' West said Nielsen was 'trying to keep a good, firm understanding of the competitive situation out there' and conceded that the Google/EchoStar agreement was one that 'got a lot of write-up'. However, he suggested that neither Nielsen nor 'anyone else' knew at this point whether this particular avenue of exploration would 'gain traction' for Google, or remain isolated. At present the EchoStar agreement seems to be limited to a count of advertising views on a digital set-top box.

Nielsen's options would presumably include working with Google to develop new types of audience measurement service. The measurement giant is already working with DirecTV on its new DigitalPlus service, while other competitors such as TNS and TiVo are already developing digital set-top measurement systems.

Yesterday's results show that media audience measurement is the group's boom sector, up 9% on the year – online audience measurement business NetRatings reported revenue up 17%, last month. Nielsen's market research business grew 4.5% with business media down 2% due to 'softness' in advertising sales.

Nielsen is online at www.nielsen.com . The Google 'threat' report is published by Outsell, Inc. and featured on DRNO on April 11th: www.mrweb.com/drno/news6655.htm .

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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