Nielsen

Nielsen’s television group has begun using Exelate Connex, a cloud infrastructure service, to segment, map and create customer audiences it can push to multiple media partners.

Jack Wakshlag, Turner Broadcasting chief research officer, offered a spirited endorsement Wednesday of Nielsen’s proposed $1.26 billion deal to acquire Arbitron. From his perspective, the media industry needs reliable cross-platform measurement that can serve as a currency. And, he believes a marriage will move that along.

Even though global ad spending has grown only moderately on a year-over-year basis, 2013 has proven to be a year to spend for select industries—and an off year for others. Industry and services was the fastest growing sector in the first quarter (up 8%), according to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report. Meanwhile, financial services and automotive advertisers are spending less.

Nielsen replaces Sprint Nextel, which was dropped as more than 50% of its shares are no longer expected to be available to the public following an acquisition. Nielsen has a market cap of $12.7 billion, above the minimum $4 billion required to be on the index, which many feel is a solid reflection of the health of the U.S. economy and a proxy for the strength of the stock market.

Despite the perception that the under-30 crowd is leaving newspapers and their websites behind for other digital news outlets, studies are finding that the newspaper is still a vital source of information for the millennials. Some 57% of those ages 18-34 read newspapers, in print or online, during the course of an average week. “There is no question that members of the younger generation tend to be more active in using digital media to seek and absorb information they consider relevant to their lives,” says Newspaper Association of America’s Jim Conaghan. “Newspapers continue to refine existing methods and invent new ones to reach younger generations through their digital platforms.”

Nielsen isn’t abandoning set-top-box (STB) data, but it is substantially scaling back plans to use it for local measurement. It boils down to the need for speed. In the 55 largest markets, Nielsen has determined — at least for now — that it’s not possible to collect and process the data quickly enough to continue with overnight ratings, a major client need. So, Nielsen has altered the new “hybrid” system it laid out last summer.

When a company is eager for FTC approval of a proposed acquisition, it’s a relief when a leading customer comes out in favor of it. Nielsen has to take heart from CBS’s top researcher David Poltrack supporting its proposed purchase of Arbitron.

The “upscale” portion of the U.S. Hispanic consumer segment is growing at a much faster clip than many marketers previously believed. The upscale segment was defined as Hispanics residing in households with annual incomes of between $50,000 and $100,000. The study, conducted by Nielsen and released by The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, revealed that upscale Hispanics now total 15 million, accounting for three out of every 10 Hispanic homes and about 12% of all U.S. households.

A successful test with Nielsen brings broadcasters another step closer to monetizing content using Syncbak’s streaming technology.

By any standard, Rentrak has done an extraordinary job over the past few years building and rolling out its local TV measurement service. But if Rentrak has thrived in a phase one — gaining a toehold, if not foothold, in the local measurement business — now it must navigate a second phase that could be very telling about its fate. Nielsen is on the offensive, looking to upgrade its service.

Based on its new definition of a TV home — one that can include a broadband connection — Nielsen says the number of TV homes is up versus the year before to 115.6 million homes. Nielsen says its TV household universe estimate (UE) grew 1.2% over its estimate for the 2012-13 season which was at 114.2 million. In addition, Nielsen says the total number of TV viewers is 1.6% higher to 294 million persons ages 2 and older.

Meredith Corp.’s syndicated daily lifestyle program, The Better Show, is now fully C3 measured by Nielsen. “We were very encouraged after seeing Nielsen benchmark data last fall,” said Brendan Kelly, […]

Expanding its metric services on the Internet, Nielsen now has announced a pilot effort for TV/video “program” content — called Nielsen Digital Program Ratings. A number of TV networks and media companies have signed — A+E, ABC, AOL, CBS, The CW, Discovery Communications, Fox, NBC and Univision — to participate in the online trial which will begin in May and go through July.

Nielsen has been promising “enhancements” to its local TV ratings for years. While replacing paper diaries has been elusive, there may be a solution soon.

Wasn’t one supposed to kill the other? Annual TV ad spending is closing in on the $80 million mark, while DVRs could soon be in 50% of U.S. homes by the start of the new TV season. Nielsen estimates 46% of homes have a DVR, marking a 9% increase over the prior TV season. Meanwhile, the research firm says the U.S. TV market generated $76.5 million in spending in 2012, a 6.5% increase.

The proposed acquisition of Arbitron by Nielsen came a step closer to reality on Tuesday with an almost unanimous vote by Arbitron shareholders to approve the deal.

2012 closed out on a positive note for the ad industry: globally, ad spend increased 3.2 percent year-over-year to $557 billion, according to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report. A strong third quarter, which saw growth of 4.3% helped drive the annual uptick. Ad spend growth then receded to a more modest 2.5% in the fourth quarter.

A forthcoming study by ratings giant Nielsen has found that in homes where the head of the household completed four or more years of college, family members watch 48 minutes of morning television a day, on average, compared with homes where the head of household’s highest education was high school, which average one hour and 16 minutes.

While there’s still some resistance from media buyers, live-plus-same-day ratings for local measurement finds growing acceptance in top markets. Today, according to TVB, about 75% of ad buys in Nielsen’s top 25 markets with Local People Meters markets are negotiated using live-SD ratings. “At a bare minimum, we believe that local viewing should be measured including DVR viewership,” says Valari Staab, president of NBC Owned Television Stations. “Our local measurement should reflect the way people watch TV today.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of Sunbeam’s monopolization claim against Nielsen Media Research. All three judges on the 11th Circuit Court agreed with the lower court’s ruling that Sunbeam Television lacks antitrust standing to pursue its claims against Nielsen.

A new Nielsen-SocialGuide study shows that for 18-34 year olds, an 8.5% increase in Twitter volume corresponds to a 1% increase in TV ratings for premiere episodes, and a 4.2% increase in Twitter volume corresponds with a 1% increase in ratings for midseason episodes.

The last half of last year began on a promising streak and then, instead of winding up with a bang, it went out with a whimper. It was if advertisers across the board pulled back on spending in the last three months of the year. Or it felt that way. Now the numbers are in, and they reveal just how much the ad economy slowed down in those last three month.

It’s true. Most people watch TV in their living rooms using traditional cable or satellite options. In fact, more than 95% of Americans get their information and entertainment that way. But as we explored what the other 5% are doing, we found some interesting consumer behaviors that we want to keep an eye on. This small group of video enthusiasts is tuning out traditional TV — and the trend is growing. This “Zero-TV” group, which makes up less than 5% of U.S. households, has bucked tradition by opting to get the information they need and want from non-traditional TV devices and services.

With DVRs, video on demand, game consoles and streaming services, tablets and smartphones, the way people watch television is changing and the industry is struggling to keep on top of it all. Even the idea of “watching television” is in flux. Are you “watching TV” when you stream an episode of Downton Abbey on a tablet?

After a meeting in New York Tuesday, the ratings company will roll out a system to measure broadband, Xbox and, in time, iPads, with more changes to come.

National ratings measurement of the Weigel-owned classic TV diginet will begin in the spring.

Super Bowl ads on TV have immense reach and cost big money. Last year’s Super Bowl XLVI attracted 111.3 million viewers, making it the most watched U.S. telecast of all time. This level of exposure doesn’t come cheap, however, as advertisers spent an average of $3.4 million for a 30-second spot, up more than $300,000 from 2011, according to Nielsen.

Global advertising had a strong first nine months of 2012, with television advertising still holding the biggest share of advertising dollars and outperforming overall global growth. Nielsen says ad spending rose 3.3% from January to September last year, with TV advertising up 4.3% during the period.

Facial recognition technology has been around for years. But only recently has it been incorporated into TV sets by smart TV manufacturers like LG, Samsung and Panasonic. Nielsen is again actively exploring how to apply the technique to its TV ratings panel.

Strong revenues from the Summer Olympics, automobile, and U.S. political advertising helped push up global spending by 4.3% in the third quarter of 2012.

According to Nielsen’s Cross Platform Report, 18-24-year-olds watch nearly an hour and a half of video on the Internet each week, the most of all demographic groups. Nielsen reported nearly half of these viewers grab their smartphones at least once a day while watching TV.

Nielsen has the brand strength and credibility to conduct an in-depth study of radio’s viability as an industry. Radio needs to invest in proving its ability to drive business, as other media have done, so firm metrics can be provided to advertisers. This is an excellent opportunity for Nielsen to help radio get to the next level.

The $1.26 billion deal expands Nielsen into radio measurement. CEO David Calhoun: “The high level of engagement with radio and TV among rapidly growing multicultural audiences makes this central to Nielsen’s priorities.”

The ratings company and the social media network have inked a multiyear agreement to deliver a syndicated-standard metric based on the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter.

In a rerun of sorts, all television viewing continues to remain at high levels, when looking at the virtually completed TV year in 2012 versus a year ago. But a key contributor to previous overall longtime TV gains, ad-supported cable, seems to be weakening.

Top executives at large media companies routinely indicate to investors that a big chunk of their programming is taking place off the traditional TV set and not counted by Nielsen. The implication being: buy shares now because once that’s measured and advertisers pay fairly for it, watch out.

Nielsen says that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about the content of television shows, an increase of 27% from only five months earlier. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage.