Nielsen to begin measuring bar, gym, hotel viewing this summer

In a shot-in-the-arm for sports broadcasters, MediaPost reports that Nielsen’s long-awaited service to track
out-of-home viewing, a co-venture, will begin yielding data later this
summer. The system offers the tantalizing prospect of measuring viewing
in bars, hotels and workout gyms–something networks have argued they
don’t receive credit for from advertisers.

What will be called the Nielsen Out-of-Home Report–a joint venture
with Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI)–was announced in April
2007 with an expected launch that September. Then the debut was
postponed until this past April, and now again until this summer. It
will be the first time that Nielsen provides any out-of-home viewing
data.

The data that covers viewing of national broadcast and cable networks
will be culled from a panel of 4,700. Panelists will carry cell phones
from AT&T that run the software that allows tracking of the
exposure to programs (participants receive $50 a month).