Nielsen Will Start Measuring Streaming More Like Linear TV

Nielsen is looking to better measure how streaming viewing stacks up. Today, the measurement firm is rolling out a new ratings system that will measure total viewing and audience demographic information across 10 subscription video-on-demand, ad-supported video-on-demand, MVPD and virtual MVPD services. The new ratings system, Nielsen Streaming Video Ratings, will track who is watching, when viewers are watching, what app they are watching on (like Netflix) and through what platform they are accessing that programming (like a Roku streaming device). Nielsen will also provide demographic information for streaming audiences, including race/ethnicity breakdowns, household income levels and location. At the outset, viewership on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, YouTube, Tubi, Pluto, Comcast, Charter Spectrum and Sling TV will all be measured. Nielsen will add new streaming platforms in the coming months as additional apps reach certain thresholds for accurate reporting. The aim of the new streaming video ratings is to provide programmers and advertisers with more granular data about how audiences are watching programming and how their total TV time stacks up across both linear and streaming. With the data, Nielsen says, clients will be able to do things like look into audience viewing habits on streaming services like YouTube during certain dayparts, much like they can already do on linear television. The hope is that more information about streaming viewership across various types of streaming services will give the industry more transparency into streaming usage overall, allowing for better decision-making related to programming, advertising, marketing, content licensing and even casting. “What we really haven’t had until now is that broader picture of overall TV usage of apps through the TV—not just how much time consumers are spending in total but also by app, and not just the SVOD apps, but on AVOD, on MVPDs,” Kevin Rini, Nielsen’s svp of product leadership, said. “This really gives the capability of seeing insights for any streaming video app, no matter what kind it is, and understanding how usage of streaming apps fits in with how consumers are using the television overall.” To collect the data, Nielsen will install streaming meters into its panel homes across the country, which will measure internet traffic to understand when viewers are watching streaming content. Nielsen already uses network codes and audio fingerprints to track the specific programming that panel households watch, but the firm had not previously been able to understand what app viewers were using to access the programming they were watching. Eventually, Rini says, every home in its panel sample that is capable of streaming to TVs in the home will have a streaming meter. He estimated that it would take a maximum of two years for all of the streaming meters to be installed across Nielsen’s network, which is about the amount of time that Nielsen turns over its panel sample. Nielsen has already installed about 9,000 of the streaming meters and begun collecting streaming data and providing it to some clients. That is already giving the measurement firm a picture of how households are watching television. According to these new ratings, one-third of streaming-capable homes use between three and four subscription video services per month, and nearly 50% of homes also use an ad-supported video-on-demand service every month. Nielsen said that Netflix now accounts for about 7% of total television time, which is on par with what Netflix has told investors. The new data will give the measurement firm an additional layer to its various other ratings and measurement tools that it uses to track television viewership and provide the industry with a standard set of numbers to make decisions on and in the case of advertising, make marketing decisions and set rates. It will also help the industry better understand viewing habits, and how consumers move from one type of app to another. For example, Nielsen has already observed viewers with MVPD services in their home switch from using set-top boxes to access the same content over streaming, Rini said. The new rating system is the latest addition in Nielsen’s growing arsenal of streaming-centric measurement tools as it looks to keep pace with a fast-changing industry that has had to grapple with various and sometimes incompatible data sets provided by streaming services and platforms. More than three years ago, Nielsen unveiled SVOD Content Ratings to provide ratings and demographic viewing data for Netflix, although those metrics are restricted to programs viewed on connected TV devices. Since then, Nielsen has added additional services, like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+, to those ratings. The company is also in the process of overhauling all of its video measurement to provide a single cross-platform metric across linear and digital platforms. But that metric, called Nielsen One, will not roll out until at least 2022, Nielsen has previously said. Rini said that Nielsen Streaming Video Ratings will provide another data point that will help make the streaming entertainment industry more transparent. “We feel very strongly that this will help fuel this industry,” Rini said. “We know that all of this is moving to streaming, and moving to apps, so we think this level of visibility will be really powerful.”