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NBCUniversal to Team With Data Trackers to Study Olympics Viewing

NBCUniversal’s research chief has called the Olympics his “billion-dollar research lab.”

The Games offer a perfect opportunity every two years to analyze how media habits are changing, said Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at the company, because they deliver a large audience that tunes in to hundreds of hours of coverage across a proliferation of screens over a 17-day period.

For the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next year, NBCUniversal plans to team up with the television tech company TiVo and RealityMine, a research start-up, to track how people watch the Games on television, mobile and digital platforms.

The partnership, to be announced on Monday, is intended to provide insights into the daily habits of Olympics viewers and the interplay between watching coverage on television and using tablets and smartphones. It is also expected to deliver clues to how people watch outside the home, as well as the effect of social media on viewership and the effectiveness of advertising during Olympics coverage.

The deal is part of a growing push across the media industry to better understand how vast digital changes are transforming the way people consume entertainment. Industry executives have said that they are seeking alternatives to Nielsen, the dominant measurement company for user engagement, which they complain has been slow to adapt.

As Nielsen has introduced new offerings to track digital media, rivals also have pushed ahead. In September, two smaller measurement companies, comScore and Rentrak, announced plans to merge, seeking to create a stronger challenge to Nielsen.

“More competition is always healthy,” Mr. Wurtzel said. “Frankly, it is a good opportunity to see whether or not there are some other players out there that can contribute to the TV measurement industry.”

TiVo, which introduced the first digital video recorder in 1999, has built a research business based on proprietary TiVo set-top-box data and partnerships with cable and satellite companies. Its panel now includes 2.3 million households. RealityMine was founded in 2012 and tracks digital media activity, offering the ability to measure how people watch programming across platforms. (RealityMine also plans to announce on Monday that it has landed a $16 million investment.)

Noting that TiVo places software in homes that captures every second of television viewing, Tom Rogers, the company’s chief executive, said, “We know what actual homes are doing, what they watch, what they buy.”

Mr. Wurtzel said getting the research right was crucial to NBCUniversal, which in 2014 agreed to pay $7.75 billion for exclusive broadcast rights to the six Olympic Games from 2022 to 2032.

The research helps dictate programming decisions. During past Olympics, for example, one major concern was that live-streaming a sporting event during the day would cannibalize viewership of the same event when it was shown later on tape delay. Mr. Wurtzel said the research showed that the live stream actually served as a promotional tool to drive viewership for the prime-time event.

“The notion of ubiquity is not cannibalization,” he said.

Mr. Wurtzel said that research around the Olympics is also valuable because it can accelerate the adoption of new media habits. His prediction for the 2016 Games is a surge of mobile viewing among broader audiences.

“During those three weeks,” he said, “you get a glimpse into the future.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: A Partnership to Track Olympics Viewing. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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