Nielsen's NORA Off The Ground

Nielsen has officially launched NORA, its measurement service that compiles video-on-demand (VOD) usage figures from real-time transactions collected at the set-top box level.

The company began testing its Nielsen On-Demand Reporting & Analytics tool (NORA) in late 2006, when cable service provider Insight Communications joined the pilot (www.mrweb.com/drno/news5807.htm ).

As part of the Nielsen DigitalPlus service (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6435.htm ), NORA is now able to integrate data sets from other measurement services across the firm, including box-office data from Nielsen EDI (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6957.htm ) and sales of videos and. DVDs from Nielsen VideoScan.

Cable TV broadcaster Comcast has also signed up to the service, and will use NORA to analyse trends in VOD usage based on factors such as programme distributor, programme category and box office revenue. The firm's SVP and General Manager Derek Harrar says that the system will help his firm better understand what its customers like to watch. 'NORA will enable Nielsen clients to interpret VOD viewing trends as well as analyse the impact of VOD usage,' says Holly Leff-Pressman, SVP of Nielsen's On Demand and Television Practice.

Nielsen is also planning to integrate additional data sets into NORA, such as those from Nielsen Media Research, Claritas, ACNielsen Homescan and Nielsen Online. The group's home page is at www.nielsen.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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