Broadcasting and Cable reports that at a posh Florida resort where Nielsen Media Research hosted its 2006 client meetings, President Susan Whiting told a crowd that, while ad agencies shift money from TV to new-media platforms, �no one has quite figured out how to really make money.� No one, that is, except Nielsen.
For years, the TV-ratings giant has withstood criticism that it is a monopoly with a substandard system that governs how $70 billion in TV advertising is spent annually. Lately, many executives, from national advertisers to network bosses, claim that Nielsen has been slow to respond to the quicksilver migration of video to cellphones, iPods and computers, as well as to the shifting of viewing times for hot shows. But as difficult as the splintering of the video marketplace has been for TV, the changes have become a bonanza for Nielsen.
Nielsen's new offerings will include:
* New ways to measure out-of-home TV consumption via cellphones and iPods, which could include loading Nielsen software into the devices.
* The integration of TV and Internet audience measurement to understand how people use each in conjunction with the other.
* The increase of electronic audience measurement in smaller TV markets.
* New methods of measurement, such as audience �engagement� and other factors Madison Avenue considers to increase accountability.
* A means of tracking the impact of new-media technologies.
For years, the TV-ratings giant has withstood criticism that it is a monopoly with a substandard system that governs how $70 billion in TV advertising is spent annually. Lately, many executives, from national advertisers to network bosses, claim that Nielsen has been slow to respond to the quicksilver migration of video to cellphones, iPods and computers, as well as to the shifting of viewing times for hot shows. But as difficult as the splintering of the video marketplace has been for TV, the changes have become a bonanza for Nielsen.
Nielsen's new offerings will include:
* New ways to measure out-of-home TV consumption via cellphones and iPods, which could include loading Nielsen software into the devices.
* The integration of TV and Internet audience measurement to understand how people use each in conjunction with the other.
* The increase of electronic audience measurement in smaller TV markets.
* New methods of measurement, such as audience �engagement� and other factors Madison Avenue considers to increase accountability.
* A means of tracking the impact of new-media technologies.