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Nielsen’s First OOH Ratings: Fox Wins Big, Cable Is Comparable

Nielsen has released its first out-of-home TV ratings, in conjunction with Integrated Media Measurement Inc., of television-viewing in bars, fitness clubs, hotels, office buildings and airports. Results showed that Fox dominated prime time non-sports programming from June 30 through July 27, and that cable pulled numbers comparable to broadcast.

Excluding the Olympics, Fox’s repeat of House and ESPN’s Home Run Derby were the most-watched, with 570,000 viewers, followed by Fox’s Moment of Truth with 553,000 viewers. ABC’s The Bachelorette tied for fourth with Fox’s Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, with 535,000 viewers. Fox’s Cops, America’s Most Wanted and So You Think You Can Dance also scored well. (See table of broadcast network shows and table of cable shows.)

TNT’s Sprint Cup Racing/Daytona snagged 501,000, while Disney Channel’s The Incredibles pulled 460,000.

NBC averaged 1.05 million out-of-home viewers on the first day of its Olympics broadcast, boosting the record-breaking audience that viewed the opening ceremonies at home (see table). On the second day of the Games, NBC’s out-of-home audience was 950,000, followed by 812,000 on day three.

The first clients to make use of the out-of-home measurement are ESPN and Zenith Media.

Currently, 1,700 users carry a mobile phone which is equipped with a technology that creates digital signatures of all the audio media (television, radio and movies) to which it has been exposed. IMMI matches these with audio signatures collected by IMMI from actual telecasts. The results are then transmitted to IMMI computer servers for reporting, Nielsen explains.

When the local service is rolled out to six markets by the end of the year, 500 users will carry the device in each market.

Separately, CNN has asked IMMI for an analysis of out-of-home ad exposure for 10 clients of OMD and PHD. The partnership will see IMMI measuring CNN’s out-of-home exposure beginning in Q4, with data being processed early next year. CNN hopes the data will give clients a better context in which to consider future media buying.

Arbitron is also getting into the out-of-home measurement game, using its custom survey division and its PPM to deliver metrics for out-of-home advertising. Most recently, Arbitron was hired by KidCare TV, a place-based digital video network in pediatric doctors’ offices, to track viewing of the network.