Nielsen

A new analysis of insights from Nielsen’s fourth-quarter 2016 Comparable Metrics Report found that over 92% of all viewing among U.S. adults (18+) happens on the TV screen. The analysis focused on the share of total gross minutes of consumer viewing across TVs and TV-connected devices in addition to PC, smartphone and tablet video in fourth-quarter 2016.

It will introduce nearly 15,000 audience meters in approximately 7,000 homes across the 140 markets now using paper diaries. It says the move will “address the limitations of solely using set-top-box data for audience measurement in local TV markets.

Nielsen touted its relationship with Google Wednesday, reminding marketers that the data metrics and measurement company has been named to Google’s Marketing Mix Model Partner program. The program based on the MMM statistical analysis lets partners collect Google advertising impression and spend data directly from Google’s network of sites with standard practices.

Nielsen has an encouraging message for TV producers and distributors as they dive into the upfront ad sales season. Recent ratings declines will look less worrisome as they account for the growth of delayed viewing via DVRs and VOD, as well as digital and out-of-home viewing.

It’s not easy to embrace new ways of doing business after decades of sticking to the same methodology that has been in place since the The Honeymooners first flickered on screen. But if the industry can’t come to a consensus on which solution is best to evolve TV’s hopelessly broken measurement system beyond its current reliance solely on Nielsen monitoring of linear TV audiences, it risks losing no small portion of the approximately $44 billion in advertising dollars that ad-buyer Magna Global says was spent on national TV last year.

Back in October, Nielsen announced its plan to launch an out-of-home ratings reporting service measuring TV commercial viewing in restaurants, bars, hotels, gyms, airports and other locales. Now, the company announced that the product, named the Nielsen National Out-of-Home Reporting Service, is ready for use, and ESPN is the service’s first client. ESPN2 will opt in as well.

Accenture will run — with support from Nielsen and comScore — OpenAP, a new TV ad sales targeting consortium formally unveiled today by partners Fox Networks, Turner and Viacom.

A new capability in Nielsen Marketing Cloud, Nielsen Artificial Intelligence is designed to allow marketers to instantly act on changes in audience behavior that improve marketing relevance and results.

Nielsen says there was an 18% gain in news media consumption in 2016 over the year before — to 72.5 billion minutes. Adults 18+ watched 44% more national cable TV networks, in term of gross minutes a week.

Given the changes in how we watch TV versus even just a few years ago, a prominent topic has been the way we now measure TV. This is especially true for local markets. Jeff Wender, Nielsen’s managing director, local media, talks about where things stand.

The new long-term agreement for ratings at its O&Os across 17 markets adds Fox’s Charlotte, N.C., duopoly of WJZY-WMYT.

If you’re wondering why it’s been a few days since you’ve seen a TV ratings story, it’s because a power outage at a Nielsen facility in Florida over the weekend crippled the company’s ability to process data all the way through Wednesday morning, so no one had access to numbers of any kind.

Big-time live TV broadcasts lately have been delivering the thrills — but not the ratings. The live TV meltdown isn’t going unnoticed by advertisers who, like cord-cutting viewers who have ditched their cable subscriptions, are increasingly feeling the pull of the internet.

Millennial media consumers have no problem with advertising, especially if the content is free. But looking deeper, they are paying less attention to the ads, according to a new Nielsen study.

Several companies, eager to help brands more efficiently spend advertising money, use devices to track viewing habits in surprisingly granular detail.

Several companies, eager to help brands more efficiently spend advertising money, use devices to track viewing habits in surprisingly granular detail.

Fourth-quarter revenues were up 2% to $1.66 billion, with net revenues sinking 37% to $160 million. Nielsen’s stock was 2.7% higher after Thursday’s close to $43.18.

Nielsen and CBS Television Stations have signed a multiyear renewal agreement for Nielsen’s Local Television Measurement, which includes ‘Local Digital in TV’ ratings.

The ratings firm says this is the first solution to receive accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its contribution to TV audience measurement for programming viewed on computers and mobile devices.

Tribune Media on Wednesday announced that it completed its sale of Gracenote video, music and sports, to the Nielsen Co. for $560 million. After-tax proceeds are estimated to be approximately $500 million, of which $400 million was used to repay existing debt, with the remainder to be reinvested in the business. Tribune  Media will retain its ownership of the business-to-consumer websites, Covers.com and ProSportsDaily.com.

One month after NBCUniversal asked Nielsen to put the brakes on its Total Content Ratings (TCR) rollout, the company has decided to modify its plans for making the new metric publicly available. Now, instead of the release schedule it announced in September, in which all metrics would be available to all Nielsen clients—including all networks, analysts and press—on March 1, TCR will now have a “limited commercial release” on that day.

The app’s parent, Snap Inc., which appears to be on the cusp of an IPO, wants TV advertisers to think about it as mobile television and spend their money accordingly. It has formed a partnership with Nielsen’s mobile Digital Ad Ratings unit, giving brands the ability to buy guaranteed Snapchat audiences by age group and gender. For the most part, it’s the same kind of system — from ordering to measuring the results — that marketers are accustomed to with Nielsen’s TV offerings.

And in the unlikely event that anyone was paying attention to size over the weekend, that’s short of the 37.8 million who watched President Obama’s first inauguration in 2009. Steven Perlberg puts the Nielsen numbers in historical perspective. 

Nielsen and AT&T this morning announced a deal to license “anonymized” set-top-box data from subscribers of AT&T’s DIrecTV and U-Verse services to Nielsen to be used in its local and national TV ratings

Pay TV networks start the new year with discouraging news from Nielsen: The universe of homes that subscribe to cable or satellite for January is down 1.7% vs. the same time last year, even though the number of TV households grew 1.7% to 118.4 million, Nielsen estimates — and Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser reports.

A special Nielsen study found that amid the mad dash for the perfect gift, last year’s holiday season saw primetime holiday-themed programming reach more than 217 million viewers. Put another way, over 85% of all U.S. TV households watched at least a minute of this type of content between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.

The company says the move will let it focus on its core television and entertainment business. It also announces plans to repay debt and declare special dividend of approximately $500 million in first quarter of 2017.

NBCUniversal has raised serious doubts about the reliability and transparency of the new ratings, going so far as to suggest that Nielsen wait on rolling them out. In a letter sent to Nielsen, and subsequently leaked to the media, the head of NBCU’s ad sales, Linda Yaccarino, says the system needs more work. Nielsen quickly dismissed Yaccarino’s concerns. It says it has been working with partners in television to ensure it has the best product and that the March 1 release date is still on track.

A Nielsen Scarborough study found newspapers reach 69% of the U.S. population each month, and that “81% of monthly newspaper readers engage with the print product, with 51% reading print exclusively. The remaining 49% reads a newspaper on at least one digital platform, with 30% reading both digital and print.”

NBC Universal has sent a letter to Nielsen expressing concern over its Total Content Ratings product and asking the media measurement giant to delay its introduction. In a letter obtained by Ad Age, Linda Yaccarino, chairman-advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCU, said that the Total Content Ratings product in its current form “lacks the consistency and transparency the marketplace demands and expects from Nielsen” and is not ready to be released.

Television in 2016 was all about court rooms, cat fights and comebacks. There was also an oversupply of sports narratives where the underdogs came out on top. U.S viewers were witnesses to historic comebacks against even more historic odds. Underdogs thrived in hit TV dramas as well, extending the reign of what critics suspect is the second golden age of content. In the end, viewing audiences were the real winners, as they were able to enjoy some compelling content and watch what and when they wanted to via time-shifting.

When it comes to holiday ads, mass merchandisers account for more than half of the total retail category’s gross ratings points during the holiday months. And not surprisingly, there is a significant increase in mass merchandiser ad spend (and overall retail ad spend) during the holidays compared to the rest of the year. However, that is not the case across all advertiser categories.

 In order to get a total snapshot of social TV activity, measurement needs to account for the diverse and ever-changing ways consumers interact with programs. With that in mind, a recent Nielsen study took a closer look at two key considerations: classifiers and content type.

Nielsen is launching a new service of its Digital Ad Ratings — DAR Publisher Insights  — that allows digital publishers to achieve a deeper analysis of advertising campaign data.

Nielsen reaffirmed its latest data suggesting sizable subscriber losses at many cable networks, some of which questioned the accuracy of the findings two weeks ago. The measurement company reissued the November Cable Network Coverage Areas Universe Estimate on Friday after recalling the report, which showed losses at 82 out of 119 networks.