Nielsen to Add TV Audience Meters as Part of Diary Replacement

Nielsen plans to install close to 15,000 TV audience meters in about 7,000 homes in the 140 markets currently measured by local TV paper diaries, toward its goal of universal electronic television measurement in all 210 local TV markets, it said Tuesday. It said the electronic meters will help fill data gaps that come from using set-top data for audience measurement in local markets. It said the audience meters will be in recruited households that include those viewing through over-the-air broadcasts. In a statement, NAB said it "long believed that over-the-air TV station viewership has been undercounted by measurement companies as multicast ‘D2’ networks gain in popularity and TV antenna sales increase," and the Nielsen announcement "sends a positive signal about the renewed vitality of local and network broadcast television in an era of pay TV cord-cutting and cord-shaving.”