NEW YORK: Nielsen and Kantar Media today announced a multi-year agreement providing Nielsen with set top box data from Kantar Media’s DirectView service for use in local TV audience measurement. Nielsen has developed a proprietary, hybrid methodology for the U.S. market that combines Nielsen’s National People Meter panel data with set-top box and other sources of data, and is continuing to explore the use of this methodology in local markets that currently rely on diary-based measurement.

Nielsen said it selected DirectView because it is one of the largest set-top box services in the United States that anonymously covers live and time-shifted viewing. Nielsen’s use of the DirectView data to enhance its audience measurement approach follows a successful proof-of-concept test that provided greater stability in local TV audiences.

-- Television Broadcast