Nielsen, the company that tells us how successful TV shows are, is joining the modern age. From September, it will include data from streaming services in its statistics.
The Hollywood Reporter claims that viewing habits on set-top boxes, consoles and tablets will be monitored and rolled into the results Nielsen issues. In other words, it’s redefining what it views as TV viewing. The decision was made, apparently, by a committee made up of representatives from TV networks and advertisers who met in New York on Tuesday.
Nielsen has already trialled the system on Hulu, Netflix and YouTube, and now it plans to roll out hardware and software to the 23,000 American homes it gathers data from as early as this September. Initially set-top boxes and game consoles will be targeted hard — not all tablets will be included from the off. But the long-term goal is apparently to “capture video viewing of any kind from any source”. Ambitious and slightly sinister-sounding too! [The Hollywood Reporter via The Verge]