Nielsen signed a new multiyear deal with CBS Television Stations for Local Television Measurement. The new deal covers local market ratings for CBS owned and operated stations in 17 U.S. markets.
The deal with CBS comes just weeks after Nielsen completed a similar agreement with AT&T's DirecTV and U-Verse subscribers in Nielsen's local and national TV currency ratings services.
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CBS’s stations will use Nielsen products including Local Digital in TV Ratings to get a more complete picture of over-the-air and digital audiences. CBS will be able to view consumers’ viewing habits and create specific trading areas by geography, audience characteristics or demographics.
“As many American cities are becoming more diverse and populations continue to grow, it’s critical for TV stations to have a complete picture of who’s viewing their content. Nielsen’s local television services enable us to maximize our viewership and deliver value to our local advertisers,” said David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS and president of CBS VISION, in a statement.
Nielsen says its set-top-box data and out-of-home viewing data will help CBS local stations and others capture all viewing occasions.
“CBS is at the forefront of delivering quality content across a wide range of consumer devices, both at home and outside in the local community. We look forward to helping CBS demonstrate their broad reach, and deliver upon enhancements in our local television service that will provide even greater accuracy and fidelity,” said Jeff Wender, managing director for Nielsen Local Media, in a statement.
For Nielsen, the pay-TV and broadcaster deals come as the company also recently closed and began integration of metadata provider Gracenote.
Nielsen says that Gracenote’s capabilities will give Nielsen deeper analytics on consumer behavior and offer new views of audience engagement from discovery to consumption. Nielsen will integrate Gracenote’s metadata into its Total Audience measurement framework and Gracenote's long-term client relationships across TV, audio, sports and auto will be “further amplified through Nielsen's global reach and position as the leader in audience measurement and intelligence.”
"Bringing Gracenote under the Nielsen umbrella creates an industry-leading media discovery, metadata and measurement business strongly positioned as the market shifts to greater personalization," said Karthik Rao, president of Expanded Verticals at Nielsen, in a statement. "This acquisition combines Nielsen's audience measurement and analytics with Gracenote's data and technology, providing clients with deeper resources to capture consumer engagement across the evolving content ecosystem."