Nielsen has long been the standard of television ratings, so a recently announced change to its “average audience” system was a shock for their clients. Notable is that duplicate viewing to all program telecasts is being added to the average audience ratings, taking into account how many consumers watch shows on the Internet and other devices.
The acknowledgment of the importance of new forms of media has some in the traditional TV advertising business worried. “Reach and frequency will certainly be impacted,” said Don Seaman, vice president-director of communications analysis at MPG to Mediapost {link no longer active}. “It’s unlikely that any repeated program content viewing will deliver repeated commercial viewing. Once again, the metric is favoring the content providers and probably overstating what the actual commercial impact really is.”
While there is some worry that this sort of system is being used as something that favors the new media forms over traditional television, Nielsen assures that it should not dull the effect of most TV ad campaigns. “The impact is definitely pretty small,” said Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes. “The estimate is that it will increase viewing under one percent.”
Still, Holmes noted that the number is expected to increase over time as consumers and the industry embrace the idea of “TV everywhere.”
