New Nielsen Service Shines A Light On Subscription-Based Streaming Content Consumption
Nielsen announced today that it is now offering the industry a syndicated solution to independently measure subscription-based streaming content. Disney is among the networks and studios already signed on to use the service along with A&E Networks, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal and Warner Brothers.
Nielsen began measuring streaming content in 2014 via an opt-in service. This new solution takes SVOD measurement to the next level with a significant enhancement to its video on demand (VOD) Content Ratings framework, which leverages the rich demographic and household characteristic data of the Nielsen National TV Panel, to identify viewing to these programs.
“The significant growth of SVOD services in entertainment markets across the world has created demand from rights owners to understand the size and composition of audiences relative to other programs and platforms,” said Megan Clarken, President of Watch, Nielsen. “The syndication of SVOD measurement as part of Nielsen’s Total Audience offerings represents a big step forward in terms of moving closer to transparency within the SVOD marketplace.”
With this enhancement, subscribing clients will now have a more comprehensive view of their content’s total audience regardless of where it was viewed—and the ability to follow the full lifecycle of a program from live to time-shifted viewing to set-top-box video on-demand and now SVOD. Conversely, as SVOD originated programs re-enter the traditional television ecosystem, an established track record of their audience profiles will already exist. These new insights will empower content owners and networks with real data into what was previously a significant and expanding blind spot of consumer behavior.
Nielsen’s new SVOD Content Ratings solution will provide measurement of programs at the season and episode level in a manner comparable to linear television data—including ratings, reach, frequency and segmentation reporting—as a way for clients and the industry to better understand where this content fits in the larger media ecosystem.
My Take: Companies like Disney always need data on their shows and while Nielsen has been a standard for Television ratings for decades, this new system should insure Disney have all the information, especially for networks that they don’t own. And with ratings like total amount of views will impact on how future shows are funded, as with TV ratings, if a show does bad, it could be axed and if a show does well, its continues for more seasons.