KTSF Launches Nielsen-Measured Mobile TV App

KTSF, an independent, full-power station targeting Asian Americans in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market (DMA 6), today launched its local TV App in the Apple App Store and fully implemented Nielsen proprietary mobile measurement software.

The station says its viewers “have consistently demonstrated mobile device adoption and digital viewing trends above the national average population making mobile measurement business critical.”

 According to Nielsen’s Cross-Platform report, Asians currently watch 19% more video on smartphones per month than the average person.

Viewers will have access to both live and on-demand television programming in the Bay area. Nielsen’s mobile measurement software allows clients to go beyond how many viewers download an App and time spent to understand granular information important to advertisers such as demographics; which ad campaigns or program episodes were watched; and the difference in viewing behavior of live programming and on demand. Supplemental mobile viewing will contribute to existing television audience estimates with mobile viewers allowing KTSF to identify additional viewing that it is not currently receiving credit for today.

The KTSF App is powered by Syncbak, which integrated Nielsen’s proprietary Software Development Kit (SDK) in April. The Nielsen SDK allows clients in local markets, who are encoding their content with Nielsen Watermarks, to measure audiences across mobile platforms and, later this year, include that viewing in their television ratings when streaming the same program and same advertising as the live television feed. Measurement of the KTSF App on the Android platform will follow shortly.

“KTSF has perfect market positioning to leverage the App in order to move forward with incorporating any additive viewership into our traditional ratings,” said Michael Sherman, GM, KTSF. “The San Francisco Bay area is not only one of the highest ranked DMAs for Asian Americans, but also among the top iPad, tablet and smartphone penetration and that penetration is growing at a brisk pace. We think Nielsen’s SDK, allowing us to be at the cutting edge of audience measurement, will help paint a clearer picture of our overall audience to advertisers,” 

“Nielsen and KTSF are working together to reflect a new reality in content consumption on smartphones and tablets,” said Farshad Family, SVP, local product leadership at Nielsen. “Through this proprietary software, Nielsen is able to measure a non-English speaking segment of the U.S. and take further steps towards capturing insights about all segments of viewing population. We are excited to help KTSF take the next step in an effort to innovate and monetize mobile local viewers alongside their existing television audience.”