TV and Digital clients to receive viewing credit from digitally distributed content in Digital Content Ratings
New York, NY – Aug. 15, 2017 – Nielsen announced it will begin crediting video content distributed on Facebook, Hulu and YouTube in Digital Content Ratings. Through this capability, participating TV and digital publisher clients can now capture incremental viewing of their content within their reported audience numbers.
With Nielsen including viewership of distributed content on three of the industry’s largest digital platforms within its measurement of digital content, publishers can demonstrate the breadth of their audience. Enabled publisher clients will be able to receive credit for video distributed on Facebook and YouTube in Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings. Hulu will be providing select media partners with credit for current series content distributed on the platform, with data evaluation set to begin this month.
Now, both TV and digital clients enabled for Digital Content Ratings will be able to display viewership of their content across all platforms, including these key digital distributors. This will allow publishers to better showcase the various ways people watch their digital content, as well as provide agencies and advertisers with valuable data for more informed decision making.
“The inclusion of video content distributed on Facebook, Hulu and YouTube in Nielsen Digital Content Ratings is a major accomplishment and part of our ongoing commitment to providing the industry with independent, comprehensive measurement of the evolving consumer landscape,” said Megan Clarken, President of Product Leadership at Nielsen. “Through capturing this audience, Nielsen is providing publishers, agencies and advertisers with a better picture of today’s media consumption, with comparable metrics.”
Nielsen will provide content owners and distributors with the same visibility to data for all distributed video content. Providing a consistent and transparent view ensures a level playing field with access to the same information across both publishers and platforms.
“BuzzFeed is a distributed network publishing engaging, shareable content and adapting it to the platforms where our audience lives. Much of our content is being missed by traditional measurement tools and Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings allow us to count content views and viewers across our owned and operated properties as well as Facebook and YouTube. With this new tool at our disposal we are able to have a clearer view of BuzzFeed’s true reach. Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings are necessary for accurate audience measurement in today’s digital universe,” said Edwin Wong, VP of Research and Insights at BuzzFeed.
“Nielsen is standard-bearer for independent ratings measurement, and as the world continues to shift toward social and mobile, the enhancements to Digital Content Ratings will be invaluable for digital publishers and advertisers alike,” said Ashish Patel, SVP of Audience Development & Insights at Group Nine Media. “We at Group Nine rely on data to inform our business and content strategy, more deeply understand our audience, and contextualize our standing in the media ecosystem. We’re thrilled to have access to these new measurements as we continue to rapidly grow and evolve.”
“It’s critical to have access to accurate ratings data across channels to enhance plan efficiency and inform our investment decisions on behalf of clients,” said Michele Donati, SVP, Managing Director, WHERE at Horizon Media. “Nielsen incorporating crediting of distributed content across Hulu, Facebook and YouTube into its Digital Content Ratings is an important first step in helping to provide our clients with more complete communications planning and activation resources that are more reflective of the digital ecosystem that consumers navigate each day.”
“We at MAGNA are pleased to see this important enhancement come to fruition. Having a more complete understanding of how audiences build across platforms will help inform our strategies, and we are looking forward to seeing more progress made on this front.” said Brian Hughes, SVP, Audience Intelligence & Strategy at Magna Global.
“Mic looks to reach our audiences wherever they are, including social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube,” said Jonathan Carson, President at Mic. “With Nielsen including Facebook and YouTube video consumption in Digital Content Ratings we are getting a more complete picture of our audience, helping us to better tailor the news to our viewers and better articulate the strength of our audience to brand partners.”
“At Refinery29, we are constantly speaking to our global audience of young women across myriad platforms,” said Bart Boughton, SVP, Revenue Operations at Refinery29. “In order to reach this audience in a way that integrates with her lifestyle, we create unique content native to each platform. Having the ability to quantify this engagement is critical. Using Nielsen Digital Content Ratings will not only further benefit our understanding of where our audience spends time, but also allows us to share this important information with our partners.”
“As our own data increasingly gives us powerful insights on how to optimize brand campaigns, we’re encouraged and excited by this initiative,” noted Melissa Drucker, Head of Sales and Brand Partnerships at Tastemade. “Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings for Facebook and YouTube signal an important step in overall measurement of mobile-first video, and will allow TV buyers to have even greater visibility into actual reach and engagement on major social platforms.”
ABOUT NIELSEN
Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content—video, audio and text—is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.
CONTACT
Leslie Pitterson, leslie.pitterson@nielsen.com, 917-562-0715
