Nielsen, Ball State Center for Media Design Team Up on Study

Two Parties, Sequent Partners to Figure Out How Viewers Are Using Traditional and Emerging Media Inside and Outside of the Home

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/25/2008 11:05:00 AM

Nielsen is contracting with Ball State University's Center for Media Design on a study to help figure out how viewers are using traditional and emerging media inside and outside of the home.

CMD, in turn, will team up with brand consultants Sequent Partners on the effort, which will pay particular attention to TV and video on multiple platforms.

Nielsen is trying to determine the best ways to measure media as it moves from the TV to the computer and mobile devices.

Nielsen said the researcher will look at sample participants (350 over a six-month period) in 10-second intervals throughout their "waking" day. Another 100 people in the Indianapolis market will be measured on the adoption and use of new technologies.

The announcement came the same day Nielsen and Arbitron announced that they were pulling the plug on Project Apollo, which was to measure media consumption through portable meters that gauged "ambient" media exposure through signals embedded in various media.

“In a world where people increasingly watch programming online, on mobile devices and outside the home," Nielsen chief research officer Paul Donato said in a statement, "this study will help us to better understand how people are changing the way they consume media so that we can make informed decisions on how to measure it.”