While more viewers are getting up from the TV set and watching shows on the go, ratings giant Nielsen is stuck on the couch.
Video viewing on Apple’s iPad and other mobile devices is exploding. Just last week, Google’s YouTube said its mobile video views tripled to 200 million in 2010.
Nielsen, the market leader in traditional TV ratings, is having a tough time tracking eyeballs elsewhere. It has yet to offer advertisers an accepted way of measuring viewers who watch video on their home computers — let alone on portable devices.
Although it is working on measuring video viewing on portable devices, Nielsen said it has no timeline for a rollout.
“We are actively planning for the inclusion of viewing of TV programs on tablet devices in the Nielsen ratings,” a spokesman for the company said, adding, “At this point, there is no specific timeline for tablet inclusion.”
Nielsen Co., which counts KKR, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group as backers, is in the midst of an investor “roadshow” to drum up support for its upcoming $1.58 billion public offering.
As the industry standard for TV ratings, Nielsen has operated a virtual monopoly for decades, but that is changing as shifting media habits give competitors an opportunity to challenge it.
Nielsen counts rivals such as comScore and Rentrak in the field of online measurement.
“The company is out selling its future value, but they aren’t measuring the future of the business,” said one TV research expert. “They aren’t measuring where the audience world is, or is going. They’re measuring what was.”
Nielsen isn’t expected to roll out its “Extended Screen” service, which combines both TV and Internet video viewing, until April.