NIELSEN – YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING
Nielsen has announced plans to utilize the same audience panels for website measurement for measurement of Internet radio. As I have espoused for many years why would you use estimates when you can have actual audience data. That is one of the great features of Internet radio and helps advertisers have more confidence in audience data. Of course the other great attribute is an advertiser can actually know that an ad was heard unlike terrestrial radio where affidavits just reflect the fact that the ad was played but no data is available as to how many people heard the ad (other than to apply the estimated audience).
Given Nielsen’s clout they may be able to pull this off but I don’t believe its a good thing for Internet radio.
I also found Steve Hasker’s comments a bit troubling for an impartial research company. “Radio does it better than anyone..” Is it a sales meeting or is it about research?