On a consistent basis over the last few years Nielsen’s been scoffed at for not staying current, stumbling along trying to slow their erosion and continue their dominance in television/video viewing measurement…without much luck. Keeping a target firmly positioned on them.
Well, they just may have made a move to help stem this erosion and move the market forward as well.
Today Nielsen will begin measuring audiences of the major OTT providers like Netflix and Amazon, providing these services (and you know there’ll be others) actual insight into how their content is being viewed and streamed for the first time.
Curiously, Nielsen will conduct this research without the consent of these OTT companies starting in December by measuring the audio streams of content delivered over the Internet. Very clever.
The initial capturing is said to be “not that comprehensive” due to technological limitations especially data streamed over mobile networks.
But…..this is a great move from low-risk company who is trying to keep pace with a rapidly eroding belief in the market that their model can’t stay current.
Since Netflix will not share its viewing/streaming data and who carry’s into licensing meetings a huge stick, no huge club, this information if made openly available (I’m sure through subscription) will be quite valuable.
Now, the door has opened ever so slightly for other IP video measurement efforts being deployed – Ooyala, Adobe, Kantar (recent acquisition of Civolution’s audio tracking division), even Rentrak into being potential viable and accepted replacements.
It’s a good day, the market has just shifted.
More in the coming days…..
