Revamped Nielsen Total Audience Report Demonstrates a Refined Approach into Audience Behavior

By Sudipto Ghosh On Jul 31, 2018

Revamped Nielsen Total Audience Report Utilizes Advancements in Measurement Solutions To Best Reflect What’s Currently Happening With U.S. Consumers Across Both Linear and Digital Landscapes

Leading global measurement and data analytics company, Nielsen released a reimagined Nielsen Total Audience Report. A representative of first-quarter 2018, the industry-leading report offers a comprehensive view into the behaviors and stories developing across the dynamic media landscape. The Nielsen Total Audience Report expands upon its established cross-platform capabilities and provides a complete look at critical media sources and audience behaviors across both traditional and emerging platforms.

Revamped Nielsen Total Audience Report Realigns Focus on virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (vMVPD)

At the time of this announcement, Peter Katsingris, SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen, said, “The way people consume content is vastly different from what it was five years ago, let alone 10 or 20.”

Peter added, “Consumers have the luxury of more options now than ever before. They can watch videos or listen to music on their smartphone and then just as easily engage with completely different content on their television or radio—the opportunities for how marketers can reach them are endless. Understanding the trends of who’s consuming content, what they’re consuming, and how are the foundations of the industry. Nielsen is uniquely positioned to accurately help the media ecosystem understand these behaviors.”

Key Highlights from the Nielsen Total Audience Report

92% of U.S. adults listen to radio each week, the highest reach across platforms.
On average, U.S. adults are spending over 11 hours a day connected to linear and digital media and almost six hours a day with video alone.
Young adults 18-34 spend the largest percentage of time with TV-connected devices and digital devices compared to other demographics.
Black adults are the heaviest users of media overall. Compared to the overall U.S., Hispanics listen to more radio, and Asian Americans spend more time with computers and tablets.
Nearly three percent of TV homes subscribe to a vMVPD which includes “skinny bundles.”
Almost 20% of consumers say they use a smart speaker in the household.
Two-thirds of U.S. TV households have devices capable of streaming content to the TV set.
One out of 10 minutes of television use in streaming capable homes is streaming to the TV set.
Over 8 in 10 non-television households still view video content.

The redesigned report includes data on relevant subjects not featured in prior versions, including a detailed look at the usage of streaming content, as well as homes with a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) that provide streaming access to linear television.

Additionally, the report features enhanced data from Nielsen’s wide-ranging suite of measurement solutions. This includes Nielsen’s Total Media Fusion, a cross-platform respondent-level dataset that best reflects activity on digital devices like smartphones and tablets, as well as Nielsen’s MediaTech Trender, a quarterly consumer tracking survey launched in first-quarter 2018.

Revamped Nielsen Total Audience Report Empowers Media Companies and Advertisers to Take Full Advantage of the Growing Opportunities to Reach Audiences

With the advertising industry shifting and the evolving way, marketers connect to audiences, understanding the evolution of the media and developing consumer habits is vital to marketers and media owners seeking to reach their best consumer. The revamped Nielsen Total Audience Report seeks to not only make sense of the relationship between consumers and the various sources of media but ultimately build the bridges that will empower media companies and advertisers to take full advantage of the growing opportunities to reach audiences.

Nielsen is committed to providing accurate and reliable third-party measurement and insight. The inclusion of these new datasets and capabilities into this updated report helps align it better with the shifting dynamics of consumer media behavior.

Currently, Nielsen’s approach marries proprietary Nielsen data with other data sources to help clients around the world understand what’s happening now, what’s happening next, and how to best act on this knowledge. For more than 90 years Nielsen has provided data and analytics based on scientific rigor and innovation, continually developing new ways to answer the most important questions facing the media, advertising, retail and fast-moving consumer goods industries. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population.