Nielsen Plumps for 'Live-Plus 3'

From next January, Nielsen Media Research will switch to 'time-shifted' commercial minute ratings data as the standard currency for local TV ratings. The system will use 'live plus three' data, meaning that video played back within three days of initial broadcast will be included.

Having announced that it was close to making a decision two months ago (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7816.htm ), the firm has now agreed to put local TV ad marketing on the same footing as the national TV marketplace, which has been using 'time-shifted' ratings since 2007.

Whereas the national marketplace links audiences to commercial minute ratings, Nielsen maintains that these are not yet feasible for local market TV and says that ratings will continue to be based on program average ratings. The standard for both will now be 'live' viewing plus three days of data taken from digital video recorders.

Traditionally, Nielsen has reported both 'live' only and 'Live Plus 7', which tracks the programs viewed by digital video recorder users as many as seven days after those shows originally aired. This has caused problems with retailers whose ads are time sensitive.

In January, the firm officially launched NORA, its measurement service that compiles video-on-demand usage figures from real-time transactions collected at the set-top box level (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7863.htm ).

Web site: www.nielsenmedia.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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