Nielsen

When viewers watch a TV program with a tablet device, they tend to check their email, hunt for sports scores or seek additional information about the show or a commercial they were watching on the big screen. A new report by Nielsen Co. underscores what network TV researchers have been preaching for more than a year: that “second screen viewing” appears to augment the TV viewing experience rather than steal away viewers.

From Millenials to Boomers, males to females, and a variety of racial/ethnic groups, part two of Nielsen’s State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences Report presents an in-depth look at usage by demographic.

Television viewers in the U.S. have more choices than ever, both in terms of how and where they tune in and in what they watch. In the first of a three-part insight series, Nielsen looked at viewership and advertising across five traditional primetime genres and found that dramas account for the largest share of viewership, timeshifting and ad spend, while reality programs claimed the largest share of product placements.

Nielsen has identified several unique circumstances that combine to make Hispanics the largest population group to exhibit culture sustainability — ever. Borderless social networking, unprecedented exchange of goods, technology as a facilitator for cultural exchange, retro acculturation and new culture generation combine to enable Hispanic culture in the U.S. to be sustainable.

Smartphones and tablets have become living room companions for TV viewers to an astonishing level in the U.S. Nielsen reports that in its multinational survey of device owners, 88% of people in the U.S. with tablets say they have used their device while watching TV at least once in the last month. When it comes to smartphone second screening, the level of penetration is just as high — 86%.

Not all paid media dollars expect a lift in consumer product revenue. Sometimes brands need to weight more promotional price discounting and Internet buzz into the mix. This is among the results of a Nielsen study looking at marketing of products in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

Early results of the research into reach, duration, frequency and page views of consumers’ iPad apps and Web usage will be presented at today’s ARF re:Think Conference.

The new system — “cross-platform campaign ratings” — will combine Nielsen’s existing television ratings, which measure the reach and frequency of ads on TV, with Nielsen’s new online campaign ratings, which apply the same measurements to the Web.

According to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Americans spend more than 33 hours per week watching video across the screens, but how they’re consuming content, traditional TV and otherwise, is changing.

Over the last 60 years, televisions have evolved to have slimmer profiles, larger screens and sharper pictures. Additionally, the devices delivering the content to these new high-tech screens have changed significantly and more rapidly — helping us watch what we want when we want it. The percent of DVR usage has grown fivefold from a mere 1.6% in 2006 to almost 8% in 2011.

Oprah Winfrey issued a public apology on Monday for sending a controversial tweet on Sunday night. As the Grammys took many viewers over to CBS on Sunday, Oprah took to Twitter to ask people to tune into her cable network, OWN — “especially if you have a Nielsen box.”

Characterizing it as a “development to watch,” Nielsen issued a new report to clients Wednesday showing that the number of U.S. households that bypass cable or satellite TV and subscribe only to broadband Internet access has grown dramatically in the past year, and not surprisingly, they spend dramatically more time watching TV over the Internet.

CNBC has signed an upfront deal with agency MPG on behalf of its client Fidelity that offers dual guarantees, based on both Nielsen and Rentrak data. Agreed to during the calendar upfront market, CNBC has guaranteed Fidelity certain audience delivery figures in both the adults 25-to-54 demo (from Nielsen data) and households with incomes of $150,000-plus (from Rentrak).

Current reports suggest TV advertisers are paying anywhere from 13% to 29% price increase for a TV commercial in the upcoming Super Bowl versus a year ago. Prices are ranging from $3.5 million to $4.0 million for this year’s game, which will be telecast this Sunday on NBC. According to Nielsen, the average price for a commercial in last year’s game was $3.1 million. For advertisers, the Super Bowl is exposure to the biggest viewed TV show of the year.

National TV sports generated $10.9 billion in advertising expenditure last year, compared to $10.3 billion one year prior, according to Nielsen’s State of the Media: Year in Sports. Measuring ad spend during sporting events on network and cable TV from 4Q 2010 through 3Q 2011, Nielsen also saw that cable has an increasing share of those ad dollars — growing 37.3% year over year compared to 5.9% for sports ad spending in general.

According to a new report from Nielsen, 33% of consumers downloaded news apps during the past month. Some 51% of consumers also said they didn’t mind advertising in their apps if it meant they could access content for free.

Almost one in three U.S. TV households — 35.9 million — owns four or more televisions, according to a new report on media usage from Nielsen. Across the ever-changing U.S. media landscape, TV maintains its stronghold as the most popular device, with 290 million Americans and 114.7 households owning at least one. In contrast, 211 million Americans are online and 116 million (ages 13+) access the mobile Web.

It looks like the cuteness factor — of kids — worked well in advertising in 2011, according to new Nielsen research. And for branded integrations, sitcoms appeared to work better than dramas for brand recall.

Alan Frank, president of the six-station Post-Newsweek group, says that he has expanded his use of the Rentrak set-to-box viewing data because his problems with the local Nielsen services are “extraordinary and severe.” He may not renew his Nielsen contract, he says.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman lobbed blame at Nielsen for reporting an “inexplicable” drop in Nickelodeon ratings. Dauman said the independent Media Rating Council had been called in — an MRC executive later said by Nielsen — to conduct an audit of the “aberration. Viacom has said an evaluation of set-top-box data has shown Nielsen is off-base. Regrettably, there is no indication Viacom will release any details or findings.

Nielsen Thursday disclosed yet another software glitch — this one affecting four months of its weekly syndication all-minute respondent-level data file.

This final installment of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement looks at the impasse in the search for a local ratings currency that’s acceptable to both broadcasters and agencies. The broadcasters want some credit for DVR viewing, while most agencies still insist on live-only numbers. Although a compromise floated by TVB President Steve Lanzano went nowhere, some agency executives concede that broadcasters have a point.

Plagued by inconsistent measurement systems, the industry is seeking to standardize online audience measurements. The IAB, ANA and 4As are working on the Making Measurement Make Sense initiative that could help boost digital and cross-platform ad growth.

Clearly someone needs to develop an electric ratings system for local markets, and it’s encouraging that Nielsen is investigating new technologies.  But instead of pursuing set-top box measurement, which relies on the cooperation of the MSOs and satellite companies, I think it would be better to leapfrog ahead to new technologies (including apps) that allow Nielsen to do so independently.

Part II of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement examines the growing challenge to Nielsen supremacy in providing ratings from Rentrak. But the growing acceptance of Rentrak’s service, powered by set-top box data, has not gone unnoticed by Nielsen. It’s well aware of station frustration over its traditional measures and says it will be rolling out enhancements next year to its diary-based ratings that will better reflect actual viewership, keep paying station-clients satisfied and head off this new competition.

While an earlier Nielsen study found that social buzz can impact ratings weeks in advance, a new study from the ratings company shows that Twitter’s biggest impact is closest to airtime.

In another nod to video’s increasing currency, Nielsen and ad network Tremor Video are teaming up to expand their respective footprints. Per the partnership, Tremor’s VideoHub customers will be granted access to Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings’ gross rating points via VideoHub for Advertisers.

Nielsen says it erred when it told the Wall Street Journal that childrens’ viewership is up this season even as Nickelodeon’s ratings are down — but still stands by its Nickelodeon numbers.

Nielsen has begun informing clients of yet another significant data processing glitch — one that has been overstating estimates since 2007, the longest misstatement of Nielsen data disclosed to date.

Nielsen reports that the total number of U.S. households with TV sets declined year to year for the first time since Nielsen started counting TV ownership. In addition, the number of households with no TV at all is at its highest level since 1975 — 3% of homes are TV-free.

Nielsen is floating a new approach to VOD tracking that could jumpstart the business. Nielsen is talking with clients about an “On Demand C3” metric, which it presented at its recent national client meeting. The product might ultimately carry a sleeker “ODC3” brand.

Even with more media choices, the average American continues to watch more TV. A new Nielsen report shows that in the April-July period, the average person watched nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes more a month than in the same period a year ago.  That marked a rise of about 2% to an average of 146 hours and 20 minutes a month.

Steve Hasker, Nielsen’s president of media product leadership, talks about the ongoing effort to improve the “fidelity” and “consistency” of the ratings most stations use to sell advertising through a number of changes, including incorporating set-top box data. He also says Nielsen intends to stay above the fray over using live-only or live-plus-same-day ratings as the best measure of local broadcasting — that’s better left to the buyers and sellers of advertising.

Network executives have been slow to embrace the TV Everywhere movement, largely because they want — this is a shocker! — as much money as they can grab from cable and satellite operators in rights fees. But, they are also wary of losing ad dollars, suggesting the lack of an adequate cross-platform measurement system will cost them. They may be right, but misinformed, too.

Roughly 40% of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV, while only 14% of eReader owners said they watched TV while using their device every day.

Those of us fortunate to have known and worked with Art will remember him not only as a technology pioneer and measurement science innovator, but also as a witty and wise mentor, a generous community philanthropist and a remarkably inspiring leader.

Television is in trouble if it continues to rely on “much weaker data than, say, the Internet is able to provide,” says Tom Rogers, who as CEO of TiVo has a vested interest in set-top box audience measurement. “I don’t think (it) can go on much longer without that kind of precision and accountability.”

Three years after the national TV advertising marketplace shifted to C3 ratings — live average commercial minute ratings plus three days playback viewing — the system was finally accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC). A year after that, the rest of the world found out. The lag time between the accreditation and its full disclosure raises many questions about transparency in the current ratings system, the role of the MRC and why Nielsen itself was so lackadaisical in confirming the news, earlier this year.