ESPN, Nielsen team for multi-platform metrics

ESPN and The Nielsen Company announced an audience measurement agreement that spans the sports giant's television, Internet and mobile distribution channels, promising a unified profile of how viewers are experiencing video content on different platforms and how platform interaction impacts their viewing habits. According to MediaPost, the as-yet-unnamed Nielsen service will include the first deployment of its fledgling TV/Internet Convergence Panel, which simultaneously collects television and Internet viewing data from 1,000 households.

Nielsen insiders indicate the new syndicated service will launch in April 2008 and will include both summary level data reports and access to respondent-level data. The new service will also link to other Nielsen video measurement platforms, including those developed by Nielsen Mobile, the handset audience measurement service based on Nielsen's acquisition of Telephia.

For more on the ESPN/Nielsen deal:
- read this MediaPost article

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