Nielsen shines a light on Netflix viewership (NFLX, AMZN)

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Nielsen has compiled viewership data for TV shows on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, reports The Wall Street Journal.

These companies do not publicly share their series' ratings, so Nielsen's estimates offer a fresh look at their performance. The company collected programming data across 40,000 homes using audio recognition technology and then presented the data at the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference earlier this week.

Audience demographics were of particular note, as nearly half of Better Call Saul viewers on Netflix were age 18 to 34, compared to just 24% on traditional TV. This demonstrates how streaming services are influencing demographic shifts in TV viewing habits.

As for viewership ratings, the Season 4 premiere of Orange is ihe New Black amassed 6.7 million viewers in its first two days, which put it in the same league as Game of Thrones, which had 7.9 million viewers for the Season 6 premiere. And Seinfeld reruns on Hulu drew in 706,000 people in their first five days.

This data is increasingly making its way into the hands of producers, such as Sony Pictures Television, Lionsgate, amd NBC. Nielsen is also offering this TV measurement service to any studio that will hand over the audio files of its TV programs.

This development could affect TV streaming in numerous ways. It could help studios negotiate with subscription video on-demand platforms, as Nielsen's data paints a clearer picture of performance on these services. In a way, Nielsen acts as an auditor for Netflix and gives studios better information when they negotiate with the streaming service.

This data could also drive down traditional TV ad prices if the numbers continue to demonstrate that streaming services outperform traditional television.

Finally, Netflix could be preparing to sell ads, which it has never done to this point. But Nielsen ratings for decades have been the determining factor for the value of commercials on television, so this could soon become the case for Netflix.

However, traditional TV and streaming services cannot always be compared directly, as traditional TV is linear and streaming services are on-demand. But many are viewing Nielsen's data on Netflix as a positive sign because it increases transparency, which leads to greater efficiency, competition, and innovation.

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