TV: A New Way of Counting Eyeballs

Tivo and the Internet, among other things, have prompted a historic change in how television audiences will be counted by Nielsen Media Research. Beginning in November, Nielsen will make public the number of viewers who watch the commercials for any given program. This will lead toward a television environment where advertisers will pay for the number of people who actually sit through their ads, a number likely to be quite different than the number watching the surrounding TV show. Tivo, along with other digital recording decording devices, are also implicated in this because they make it easier for viewers to avoid the ads.

I took this medianote from a July 12 article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Nielsen Will Post Data on Ad Viewing." I also listened to a National Public Radio story on this topic.