NBC Offers Olympic Measurement across TV, VOD, Online, Mobile

Another metric, with yet another acronym, is becoming available to marketers. NBC has created what it is calling the Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMI) that will offer daily audience measurement data during its 17 days of Summer Olympics coverage.

The data will include daily TV ratings from Nielsen along with data about online and video-on-demand from Quantcast, and measurement of mobile audiences. TAMI data will be available for the previous day and night’s coverage the next day at 6 p.m.

If the systems for gathering the data work out, the index - which is the most comprehensive research effort ever conducted around a single event, according to Alan Wurtzel, pres of research and media development at NBC (via MediaPost) - it will be used for the new fall prime time television season, as well.

NBC hopes TAMI will give it ammunition to persuade advertisers to buy ad time on newer media such as VOD and mobile video, writes the Wall Street Journal.

NBC is also conducting a study on how viewers and online users consume Olympics coverage, with 500 Olympics viewers per day keeping a diary to record how they watch Olympics events, medium by medium throughout the day.

NBC will air 3600 hours of Olympics coverage across broadcast and cable TV, and 2200 hours of coverage online.

The network ponied up $894 million for the broadcast rights to this summer’s games. Because of the time difference with the U.S., the Beijing games could be one of the least watched on network TV. Ad time during the Olympics is about 80 percent sold; NBC says it expects to bring in more than $1 billion in ad dollars.