Nielsen to track audiences through SVOD

US ratings behemoth Nielsen will begin to measure viewing of titles on Subscription Video on Demand services for clients -but Netflix isn’t having a bar of it.

The service will track data for clients whose shows screen on SVOD, to help provide a total audience picture.

8 networks and production companies have signed on: A&E Networks, Disney ABC Television Group, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, and Warner Brothers. While the data will be available to them, they can choose whether to make it public or not.

“Measurement of SVOD content has been a big blind spot for the industry,” said Nielsen’s Megan Clarken. “Being able to follow assets across all these forms of consumer consumption, being measured apples to apples by a third party independent measurement is incredibly important for the studios, for the licensors or the rights holders of content.”

But Netflix will continue to run its own race.

“The data that Nielsen is reporting is not accurate, not even close, and does not reflect the viewing of these shows on Netflix,” Netflix said in a statement.

Clarken said of Netflix, “It is clearly the largest in the industry, and the one in which most of our clients said they don’t have transparency. There are about 12,000 shows that appear on Netflix that have not been measured in the past. This provides measurement across some 12,000 of those assets, and we will extend it to the SVOD services that are not measured today.”

Source: Variety