Nielsen rolled out a pilot program in February aimed at improving measurement around co-viewing of big events and the resulting data shows a 4.19% lift to Big Data viewership. Co-viewing is essentially multiple viewers in front of a single screen, and an area of measurement that the NFL (and other leagues) have looked at improving during big events.
Nielsen measured a number of big February events, including Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Olympics opening ceremony, NBA All-Star Game, Daytona 500, Olympics closing ceremony, U.S.-Canada Men’s Hockey Gold Medal Game and the State of the Union Address.
As an example, with a 4.19% lift to what NBC Sports drew for the Super Bowl in February, the audience would have gone from 124.9 million viewers with just Big Data to around over 130 million viewers under this new co-viewing methodology.
The new Nielsen data is not going to be used as any currency in the market with advertisers, but rather a test case showing early results. Nielsen’s pilot program used the company’s proprietary, wrist-worn wearable measurement devices (78,000 or so) that capture audio from TV events, shows and movies, creating a more passive process for measurement vs. having to log in.
Nielsen also had plans to measure the Masters and March Madness, as well as other high-profile sports programming in the first half of 2026.
In 2023, Nielsen and the NFL conducted a custom survey after the Super Bowl, and did a similar joint study in 2022 around Thanksgiving. Those were precursors for Big Data.
