National Geographic Channel Is First Network To Receive Second-By-Second Data From Nielsen's DigitalPlus Set Top Box Service

L as t upda te: 8 :49 a.m. EST Dec. 2, 2008

NEW YORK, De c 02 , 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- NGC Will Acquire Granular Insight on Engagement and Commercial Retention

The Nielsen Company and the National Geographic Channel (NGC) today announced that NGC will be the first network to access new insights and analyses on commercial performance through Nielsen's new DigitalPlus service, part of the Company's set top box analytics business.

Under the agreement with Nielsen, NGC will gain access to granular data from more than 330,000 set top boxes within Charter Communications' Los Angeles cable system. This set top box information will complement traditional People Meter ratings data from Nielsen's samples and will allow National Geographic Channel to develop new analyses in a number of important areas, including:

    --  Commercial and commercial pod ratings with second by second granularity
   --  Commercial creative retention
   --  Standard vs. high definition measurement

"We're committed to using both syndicated and proprietary research to get a richer understanding of what resonates with our viewers to help focus our marketing and programming efforts," said Brad Dancer, NGC's SVP Research and Digital Media. "Nielsen DigitalPlus gives us unique advantages in reaching our targeted audiences because it offers a direct link between set top boxes in subscriber homes and set top boxes in its People Meter panels, enabling Nielsen to provide context for the raw STB data and integrate it with a wealth of other datasets."

Jed Meyer, Senior Vice President, Nielsen DigitalPlus, said, "The rapid evolution of the television landscape is causing the media industry to look for better ways to measure viewer engagement with content, as well as retention rates across commercial breaks. DigitalPlus is another example of Nielsen developing measurement tools that address the needs of our clients and we applaud National Geographic Channel for taking advantage of the detailed insights that our service offers."

Nielsen launched its DigitalPlus service in 2007 to measure consumer viewing habits from all emerging digital devices. Digital set top box data offer opportunities to supplement traditional panel based measurement with more granular detail of program and commercial performance. The added granularity enables researchers to look at second-by-second tuning behavior among a variety of new metrics.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.

About the National Geographic Channel

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National Geographic Ventures (NGV) and Fox Cable Networks (FCN). Since launching in January 2001, NGC initially earned some of the fastest distribution growth in the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in television. The network celebrated its fifth anniversary January 2006 with the launch of NGC HD which provides the spectacular imagery that National Geographic is known for in stunning high-definition. NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it currently available to more than 68 million homes. For more information, please visit www.natgeotv.com.

SOURCE The Nielsen Company

 http://www.nielsen.com