June 19, 2012

Wandering Eyes—Nielsen, Comcast Aim to Amp Up Measurement

This summer Nielsen will take a difficult step as it tries to track the eyeballs glued to Comcast’s Xfinity TV app on an iPad. “All of the software has to go through their apps store and the basic function of operating in the background is something that they grant to very, very few applications,” said Brian Fuhrer, svp, national and cross-platform audience measurement within Nielsen’s product leadership group. Read on to see how Nielsen is working around Apple’s notoriously tight lid on its iOS operating system.

Also in the June 19 issue of CableFAX Daily:

Cable incumbents declared victory in TX Mon after the Supreme Court refused to hear state regulators’ appeal of a court ruling that blocked a law that would have allowed only new entrants (like AT&T and Verizon) to seek statewide franchise deals.

Verizon ups the speed game with its FiOS upgrades announced Mon. And pricing for DirecTV on Frontier Airlines just got more flexible.

Comcast spent $482.7mln in advertising in 1Q, a 4.3% YOY increase. Other big spenders include News Corp and Time Warner. More details from Kantar Media’s report here.