Leading provider of television information services in the United States and Canada, serving national and local customers including television networks and affiliates, independent stations, syndicators, cable networks, cable systems, and advertisers and their agencies. Nielsen Media Research provides to those they serve reports of consumer television viewing habits based on two separate sets of data. The first consists of data collected by meters attached to household television sets that report when the television is on and to what channel it is tuned, and, with the aid of People Meters (which measure who is watching television through the assignment of a button to each member of the household, including visitors, which when pushed indicates exactly which member of the household is watching the television), who is watching the television. The second set of data consists of listings of what programs are on those channels tuned.
Using data from the U.S. Government based on the Census, Nielsen Media Research randomly selects more than 6000 small geographic areas and then randomly selects housing units within each area for placement of the People Meters. Great care is taken to protect the identity of those households chosen for the People Meter panel, and no individual household viewing data is ever reported. Although households are recruited for two years, approximately 300 homes enter and leave the sample each month, so the People Meter panel is constantly changing.
Headquartered in New York City with offices in major markets throughout the United States and Canada, Nielsen Media Research is an independent, publicly traded company. See also acnielsen company.
