Nielsen Now Incorporates YouTube TV, Hulu Viewing Into Television Ratings

Leading analytics firm Nielsen has now incorporated viewing from both YouTube and Hulu’s respective skinny bundle services into how it reports linear TV viewing to marketers.

The ratings delivered by Nielsen will henceforth combine traditional linear audience metrics with viewership on Hulu’s live TV service as well as YouTube TV — including live, on-demand, and DVR viewing on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Nielsen launched its ‘Digital In TV Ratings’ method in 2015 to account for viewership on desktops, tablets, and smartphones when programming and commercials were identical to those on linear TV.

“We built YouTube TV to bring the most popular ‘must-watch’ TV to today’s video ​streaming audiences, ​and we’re already seeing that ​live TV represents the majority of time spent watching on the service,” YouTube TV’s director of content partnerships, Heather Moosnick

, said in a statement.  “Our network and advertising partners will benefit from Nielsen DTVR measurement of Y​o​uTube TV.”

Digital ratings will factor into the C3 and C7 data that Nielsen provides marketers, which reflect viewership within three and seven-day windows.

“This is the first time the biggest digital-first, TV streaming companies have come into the fold in terms of being included in TV ratings,” Nielsen’s president of product leadership, Megan Clarken, told Techcrunch. Nielsen had already taken viewership from other skinny bundles, like Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, into account, reports The Wall Street Journal.