Nielsen Provides First Ever Out-Of-Home Viewing Figures
3 Sep 2008
Nielsen has released its first national TV ratings of television viewing outside of the home. Together with audience measurement partner Integrated Media Measurement, the new daily reports cover audiences in locations such as offices, fitness clubs, hotels and bars.
In the month of July, Fox's 'House' and ESPN's 'Home Run Derby' generated the highest out-of-home viewing figures (570,000) and in the sports arena, the Olympic Opening Ceremony on NBC attracted 1.1 million viewers.
This is the first time that data on out-of-home has ever been available, and with more and more media being consumed in this way, it serves to give media companies and advertisers a more complete picture of total audiences. Hotel, bar and fitness club environments are key to a company like ESPN's data - as people actively seek out these environments to watch their programming.
IMMI provides the sample panel members with a mobile phone, equipped with technology that creates a digital signature from all the audio media to which it has been exposed. This is then matched back to programming data, from both TV and Radio (and movies).
AKA COMMENT
Nielsen has long been offering its program ratings for home TV viewing and this move to cover out-of-home is significant. The digital signage industry has long been arguing the case of growing out-of-home media consumption, and Neilsen's reports will serve to add real weight to these arguments.
So far the samples are relatively limited (an effective size of 2500 panelists currently represents the entire US), but Neilsen is planning to extend the service during the course of 2008.
As it becomes accepted wisdom that out-of-home is a key factor in TV viewing figures, then advertising dollars will follow and digital signage network operators will start to feel the overflow into their own properties.