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LA Set-Top Box Deal for Nielsen
Nielsen and US cable TV company Charter Communications have partnered to analyze digital set-top box (STB) data from 330,000 households in the Los Angeles area.
Charter struck a similar deal in 2006 with TNS Media Research (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6151.htm ). Under terms of the new deal, Charter will provide Nielsen with the anonymous data, which will then be used as the basis for commercially available reports on digital TV viewing.
Nielsen said that initially it would use the data to give clients a clearer look at the performance of smaller digital networks as well as viewing high-definition signals, which are currently calculated as a single measurement in the Nielsen ratings. Nielsen will also add comparisons of the second-by-second commercial ratings data from the Charter STB homes to its average commercial minute TV ratings.
The firms say that this will be the first time that census-level tuning data and panel-based people meter viewing data will be combined to produce expanded household and demographic reporting from a local TV market.
Explained Jed Meyer, SVP of Nielsen DigitalPlus: 'Through these studies, we will provide Charter with new insights on the consumption of all digital video. At the same time, we will be investigating the potential of digital set top boxes and the data they generate to enhance our existing audience measurement services.'
Jim Heneghan, SVP Advertising Sales for Charter added that by working with Nielsen his firm would be able to provide its advertiser and agency clients with 'the most reliable data possible to evaluate their media buys'.
Charter STB analyses will be available to Nielsen's clientele in the second quarter of 2008. The partners are online at www.nielsen.com and www.charter.com.
In November, digital video recorder firm TiVo announced it would be offering advertisers demographic data on TV viewers to help companies measure who is skipping over commercials (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7560.htm ).
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