Nielsen Dropping TV Paper Diaries

Nielsen’s diary-based system for measuring local TV viewership — a system that has been in place in one way or another for at least 60 years — is beginning to be dismantled and will “eventually” be retired, TVNewsCheck has learned.

The dismantling has already begun in 14 markets designated by Nielsen, confirmed Shad Family, SVP of local media for Nielsen. The 14 are the first of the 154 markets in which hand-written “viewing diaries” — paper booklets in which Nielsen participants record by hand what they’ve watched on TV — are still the primary source for viewership data.

The diaries are to be replaced by new, electronic devices developed by Nielsen that will track viewing in Nielsen households by “listening” to the audio portion of any TV shows that are being watched and a Nielsen “audio watermark” embedded in the signals transmitted by TV stations. The devices — or “code readers,” as Nielsen is calling them — are about the size of a Roku or Apple TV set-top box, Family said.

The new system will enable the diary-based markets to obtain Nielsen viewership data 12 months a year, instead of just the current four sweeps months (February, May, July and November).

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