ESPN And Nielsen Team For New Pan-Media Viewership Metrics
ESPN and Nielsen Media are developing a new metric to measure viewership across all media. That means ESPN is preparing to go to advertisers with ratings that show how many people are watching specific content on television, the Internet and mobile devices. The collaboration will debut Nielsen's TV/Internet convergence panel. Nielsen will measure the sample's TV watching via People Meters, Internet activity via Nielsen NetRatings and mobile activity via Nielsen Mobile. ESPN will use the panel to study the impact of TV promotions on driving people to the Internet and vice-versa. It also will find out the number of hours of TV and Internet usage per week in total and by time of day for any demographic. ESPN expects the panel will allow it to measure the unduplicated reach of its TV, ESPN.com and mobile programming; the overlap of the platforms; and figure out which demographics are using the various platforms (John Ourand, THE DAILY). MEDIA POST's Joe Mandese reports the service, which Nielsen insiders project to launch in April '08, "includes other components designed to shed new insights specifically for [ESPN] and its advertisers." For instance, ESPN's clients will be able to "'link in' and study the impact various ESPN platforms have on their advertising." Nielsen will also link the net's TV and Internet measurements to the ESPN Sports Poll (MEDIAPOST.com, 10/17). NielsenConnect CEO Jon Mandel said "advertisers want to know not only 'how does my media drive sales,' ... but also how altering the media mix within a particular outlet can change the effectiveness of ads." ESPN/ABC Sports Consumer Marketing & Sales President Ed Erhardt said, "Advertisers are demanding and asking their agencies to provide solutions that match up with how their brand is consumed, how their media is delivered and how their advertising is created and then placed" (AD AGE, 10/17).
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