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Nielsen Will Offer DVR Ratings Set

As ad buyers and sellers debate the impact of digital video recording on the value of commercials, they will start to get new data on the phenomenon next week from Nielsen Media Research. As part of its national daily report, the ratings company said it would start issuing two new sets of program data, in addition to the existing ratings for real-time viewing.

On December 28, Nielsen will issue the first new ratings set, which adds same-day program playbacks. On January 17, Nielsen plans to issue a second ratings set, which adds seven-day program playbacks (The company said its research shows that on average 90 percent of all played-back DVR viewing occurs within a week after a show has been recorded).

While this initial DVR viewing data will likely fuel the debate, industry experts said it is unlikely to be used to buy and sell ads, because Nielsen will only include 60 DVR homes in its 9,000 home national ratings sample � less than 1 percent of the estimated 7 million DVR homes in the U.S. today.

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