Nielsen and Ucentric to Track PVR Usage

"Nielsen Media Research and Ucentric Systems today announced they have agreed to create television audience measurement software that will track usage of personal video recorders on multiple television sets.

Under the agreement, Nielsen software will be integrated into the Ucentric Multi-TV PVR applications that power many digital set-top boxes, enabling Nielsen to collect tuning, recording and playback information from every TV connected to the Ucentric system.

The company said the software would be used only by Nielsen Media Research to retrieve data from Nielsen sample households, and only with permission from the household. The software would be inactive in non-Nielsen homes.

Digital set-tops that run on Ucentric's Multi-TV PVR solution allow TV viewers to control individual video recordings from a single in-home recording library shared among multiple television sets." [allNetDevices Wireless News]

Of course, this doesn't say if they'll be tracking how many commercials a household watches, which is a big sticking point these days. But it's good that they're finally recognizing PVRs as a viable statistical audience. Imagine all of the niche shows that are going to begin appearing on weekly lists! I hope they maintain separate "Top 20" shows just for PVRs.