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MUMBAI:
US media research firm Nielsen will triple the size of its
National People Meter (NPM) television ratings panel by 2011,
further increasing the precision of its national
television ratings and providing more flexibility for measuring
non-traditional television viewing.
Nielsen's
NPM panel, which now encompasses about 12,000 US households
and 35,000 people, will increase to 37,000 homes and 100,000
people as the company completes the previously announced introduction
of Local People Meters (LPM) into 56 local US markets, and
integrates these sample homes into the NPM.
The
sample expansion begins in November when three LPM markets
are integrated into the National sample. For research purposes,
this expansion will result in an "effective" sample
size of 17,000 households after weighting for the geographical
distribution of the 56 LPM markets is taken into account.
The "effective" sample size of the NPM panel
is now 10,000 households.
The
firm adds that larger sample sizes are increasingly important
due to the continuing fragmentation of television viewing.
A larger sample also supports the more granular measurement
that clients are requesting as the television industry moves
in the direction of commercial minute ratings. It will further
help Nielsen accomplish many of the objectives of its Anytime
Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which seeks
to measure televised video as it moves beyond the television
set in the home to the Internet, hand-held devices and to
platforms outside the house.
Nielsen
US executive VP client services Sara Erichson says, "Nielsen
is committed to continuously improving the quality of its
television measurement and this expansion will be a major
step forward in the accuracy and the flexibility of our national
television panel. With a panel of a hundred thousand people,
we can more precisely pinpoint the viewing of all demographic
groups and dig deeper into the audience levels for networks
of all sizes."
The
firnm says the move s also has implications for Nielsen's
A2/M2 initiatives, all of which are built around the concept
of 'following the video,' wherever it migrates. The plans
for out-of-home viewing, streaming video on the Internet,
and 'third screen' devices such as cell phones and hand-held
video players, are based on integrating these measurements
with traditional television measurement. This much larger
national sample creates the necessary foundation for0 an integrated
measurement approach.
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