AOL and Nielsen Launch Video Audience Measure

AOL has partnered with Nielsen to develop a tool to measure those audiences viewing the former's library of more than 620,000 videos.

The new 'AOL Video Reach' (AVR) solution, powered by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings, will provide audience demographic breakouts with reach and frequency for each of AOL's video content channels. The service will use the same processes used to measure TV audiences in order to provide comparability between audiences of AOL's original programming and curated partner content, and TV viewership.

Nielsen's service will also run on all ads served through AOL, and be used to produce audience reach numbers.

AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong (pictured) explains: 'Video is a huge focus for AOL, and we have consistently worked with industry leaders to pioneer initiatives that will bridge the gap between TV and digital video. By facilitating comparisons between AOL's massive audiences across original programming and curated premium partner content to TV, we're showing marketers that the screen on which consumers watch is far less important than the quality of the content itself and the scale of the audience it reaches.'

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