Fox Sports Subscribes to Nielsen National Out-of-Home Reporting Service

Nielsen has announced Fox Sports, as the latest media company to subscribe to its National Out-of-Home Reporting Service. The multi-year agreement provides the Fox Sports broadcast network, FS1, FS2, and Fox Deportes with program and commercial ratings for live through live + 7 days of time-shifted viewing. With this service, Fox Sports will now have a much richer view of their in-home and out-of-home audience. The National Out-of-Home Reporting Service is a critical part of Nielsen’s Total Audience framework as it provides clients with the flexibility they need to measure their complete linear TV audience.

“Sports are being watched everywhere, every day and on every type of screen. Our business has to keep pace with changes in viewer behavior,” says Eric Shanks, President, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Producer, Fox Sports. “Nielsen’s out-of-home measurement enables us to measure our audience wherever they may be, which in turn allows us to better service the advertising industry.”

Fox’s NFL regular season saw a 16% lift from out-of-home measurement among adults 18-49. Furthermore, Nielsen’s out-of-home service data pointed to a younger, more diverse, more female, and more affluent audience than Fox Sports’ in-home NFL audience. Measuring Fox Sports’ viewing wherever it happens is essential to the network’s growth and demonstrates the value of content to advertisers.

Fox Sports and its networks will receive weekly reports that include daily data for program and commercial audience estimates. The out-of-home viewing data will be derived from Nielsen’s Portable People Meter technology and combined with national TV ratings. The newly produced audience estimate will enable Fox Sports and any subscribing TV networks to fully demonstrate the depth of their content by including viewing that occurs in locations such as hotels, gyms, bars, and the workplace. Furthermore, the PPM is equipped with detection technology to know when a panelist is in-home versus out-of-home, allowing Nielsen to capture and credit Linear TV content anywhere the viewer is watching or listening to TV.

“Fox Sports has some of the most exciting and fan-favorite sporting events and we are thrilled to extend our relationship by providing them with out-of-home measurement that demonstrates their incremental audience,” says Lynda Clarizio, President, Nielsen U.S. Media. “We are committed to providing our clients with a complete view of their total audience regardless of where consumers are viewing their content. Our out-of-home measurement service is another piece of Nielsen Total Audience delivering to subscribing clients richer and more robust insights into their viewers, as well as helping to uncover new and valuable audience segments.”

The National Out-of-Home Reporting Service is the first electronic measurement service that provides viewing estimates for both in-home and out-of-home. This opt-in service leverages Nielsen’s PPM technology from nearly 77,000 installed panelists. Using a fusion methodology to combine the PPM footprint across 44 local TV markets with Nielsen’s national representative panel, Nielsen is able to represent 65% of the TV U.S. household population to project what people are watching outside of their homes.