Nielsen Adding 'Big Data' To Local Market Ratings in January

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Looking to provide deeper insights into into consumer TV viewing data, Nielsen’s local TV ratings will add "big data" from set-top boxes and smart TV platforms and services to its local viewer panels starting in January 2025.

Legacy TV viewing fragmentation has hit all platforms in recent years, including national and local broadcast and cable TV.  This has led to unstable measurement, especially for small over-the-air local market panel sizes. 

Nielsen says its existing "panel-only" local TV data measure will still be available only for research and analysis.

In April, a  preview of Nielsen's national TV measurement "Big Data + Panel" service -- a combination of Nielsen's existing panel data plus data from streamers/pay TV distributors -- showed a slight overall 4% to 5% increase in TV-video usage.

Big data integrations-- for Nielsen's national "Big Data + Panel service -- come from Comcast Corp., Roku, Vizio, Dish Network, and DirectTV.

The "Big Data" measurement piece from those platforms will cover more than 45 million households and more than 75 million devices. 

In April, Nielsen expected this Big Data + panel measure to get accreditation from the Media Rating Council by September