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Reporting TV Audiences Via Web Analytics

MediaDailyNews reports that Nielsen's number one priority for the next couple of years isn't commercial ratings, TV time- or place-shifting, or even advancing its traditional in-home measurement of conventional TV -- it's understanding the link between television and the Internet.

The company plans to introduce a new method for measuring television programming viewed over the Internet by the end of this year, Susan Whiting, CEO of the TV ratings giant, told a roomful of the nation's biggest advertisers during a presentation in New York. Whiting, speaking during the Association of National Advertisers' Television Advertising Forum, did not elaborate on how Nielsen plans to provide the new data, but alluded to the new "portfolio" measurement strategy she outlined several weeks ago.

Details of the portfolio plan, which is Nielsen's solution for "following the video" across all the platforms TV programming is and ultimately will be viewed on -- everything from broadband downloads and streams to portable devices such as iPods -- are expected to be unveiled in about two months, but an insider tells MediaDailyNews the Internet measurement solution will likely be made via a new "software" meter that would be installed in devices people use to watch TV content via the Internet. "It could be a computer or a smart phone," said the executive, "We're going to do it via software."

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