A first step toward TV-online ratings

Online viewership for shows such as CBS’s ‘The Good Wife’ will be included in CBS’s TV ratings.

For years, media people have been clamoring for ratings that better reflect people’s evolving viewing patterns, including their increased use of digital devices to watch TV shows.

But Nielsen moves at its own pace, and so despite the clamoring and the growing consumption of digital video, TV and online ratings had remained separate.

Until now.

Nielsen said Wednesday that CBS will become the first network to include digital audiences with its television ratings, not coincidentally making the announcement a day after its two major rivals, comScore and Rentrak, announced a merger that could challenge Nielsen’s longtime monopoly on TV ratings.

Data from CBS All Access, a digital subscription service that allows people to watch the network’s shows on demand and through live streaming, will be folded into CBS’s Nielsen TV ratings.

It’s part of Nielsen’s Total Audience Measurement initiative, which it’s been working on for several years with the aim of developing apples-to-apples comparisons for TV and online ratings.

The new measurements will allow media people to get a better feel for how many people are actually watching a show.

Live TV ratings have been on the decline for quite some time, with the rise of new technology such as DVRs and online viewing.

But the broadcast networks have been arguing for just as long that their audiences aren’t actually shrinking. They’re just changing, moving to new platforms to consume the same content.

Since digital and TV audiences have not been measured together, with one common rating that allowed for cross-media comparisons, the broadcast networks have had trouble monetizing these audiences and media people have had trouble figuring out their real value.

Yet clearly the movement to other platforms is well underway.

Last week, for example, viewership for Fox’s premiere of “Scream Queens” grew by 80 percent when DVR and online viewing for the three days post-debut were added. But since the online viewership is not Nielsen-certified, Fox can’t count that as part of the ratings it sells advertising on.

The timing of the announcement is amusing.

Nielsen has taken a lot of heat for moving so slowly with its combined TV and online ratings, but as a virtual monopoly, it can afford to take its time.

If the newly combined Rentrak and comScore start pushing harder into Nielsen’s turf, however, that will put more pressure on the ratings measurement company to work on its clients’ schedule rather than its own.

Tags: cbs all access, measurement, nielsen, nielsen online ratings, nielsen tv ratings, online ratings, ratings, research