| Summary: | The failure of the SMART TV ratings initiative from Statistical Research Inc. as an alternative to Nielsen Media Research's ratings is the latest in a long list of failed attempts to launch a competitor to Nielsen. Many in the TV industry feel that SMART did not offer a great deal more than Nielsen's service. Nielsen is now looking into a number of different areas, such as measuring TV viewing on computers, compiling Web ratings, and analyzing so-called clickstream data from digital cable set-top devices. In pursuit of these goals, the company has formed strategic alliances with Microsoft and Time Warner and has bought a strategic stake in NetRatings to form Nielsen/NetRatings. This is in addition to the PC/TV committee that was initiated by Nielsen in order to explore some fundamental issues about what constitutes viewing in the era of digital technology.
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