At the New Jersey Broadcasters Association convention on Thursday, Nielsen VP/Director of Sales Rich Tunkel and Research Director Partner Charlie Sislen held a panel to oultine Nielsen’s plan to add measurement of audio streams to its measurement.
Any station in a PPM market currently streaming with a provider that has implemented Nielsen’s Software Development Kit into its browser or mobile app will be measured when the testing program begins next month. For stations to receive access to the data it must fill out the free agreements with their station representative to opt-in to the service. Among the streaming providers already adding Nielsen’s SDK are JacApps, TuneGenie, Triton Digital and WideOrbit/Abacast.
The data will not be included in the public facing PPM data, but will be calibrated by Nielsen to show the platform being used to stream (browser or mobile app), demographics (including age via Facebook scraping), and removing duplication that may exist from PPM holders picking up the stream. As the streaming measurement will count all listeners it will not rely on a PPM or diary panel. Streams will continue to be listed separately in Nielsen’s data, appearing as say WAAA-IF for WAAA-FM’s stream.
The SDK utilized by Nielsen is identical to how the company currently measures streaming video. That platform went live in the Fall of 2013.
A developer guide for the SDK can be found here.
