Neilsen to track phone, tablet use
TV ratings agency will be following new set of viewers
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — These are strange days in the TV business as media analysts try to wrap their minds around a medium that, over the past year, gave viewers everything from Game of Thrones’ finest hour to I Wanna Marry Harry, with Matthew Hicks.
The game remains the same at the annual summer meeting of television executives, programming decision-makers and those who write about TV programs. The gathering of the Television Critics Association (TCA), representing some 200 newspaper, magazine and online reporters from the U.S. and Canada, has become a ritual.
The questions are the same as they were back in the days of Bonanza, Gunsmoke and the original Star Trek: What’s the hot new comedy this fall? Can the hit-of-the-moment sustain its success? Will the latest late-night talk-show host live up to the legacy of the man — and it’s still a man — he’s replacing?
What’s changed this time is you, the audience. And technology.
The old rules no longer apply. There are no longer a handful of channels, but hundreds.
Even an established brand like National Geographic — which kicked off the two-week gathering with a wildlife-themed rooftop bacchanal Monday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel — now encompasses various channels and programming. Its shows include everything from Sleepless in America, about recent advances in sleep science, to Life Below Zero, the cult hit about six Alaskan residents preparing for the long winter ahead, to Urban Jungle, a look at how large, wild mammals like bears and leopards are becoming more frequent in major urban centres like Mumbai, Bangkok, New York and Las Vegas.
Personal video recorders, online streaming, easy access to high-definition video downloads and growing interest in viewing-on-demand have yet to make the old-fashioned TV set obsolete, but the TV is no longer the living-room family gathering place it once was.
That’s why the TCA’s first panel discussion Tuesday is not a cable channel or broadcast network but Nielsen Media Research, the company behind the Nielsen ratings.
Beginning this fall, the U.S. Nielsen TV ratings will include viewing that takes place on smartphones and tablets. Nielsen will show how this new data is recorded and how, in theory, it will help critics do a better job tracking viewers’ habits.
The small screen is undergoing a sea change, and it’s viewers like you who are leading the way.