Nielsen to track Amazon Prime and Netflix subscribers

Nielsen, the company that measures TV audiences, will begin offering data on viewing by Netflix and Amazon Prime subscribers for the first time starting midyear, chief executive officer Mitch Barns said.

"That will be the last significant portion of overall television content viewing that we don't already measure," Mr Barns said .

“We really will have a full set of capabilities in the market to measure what we call the total audience across all screens, devices and platforms.” Netflix and Amazon. have been unwilling to share what their subscribers watch.

That’s given them leverage in negotiations for movies and reruns, and made it hard for TV networks to assess the value of past hits or determine if streaming is hurting traditional viewing.

To help them figure that out, New York-based Nielsen has been testing technology that measures Netflix and Amazon audiences by listening to shows and sharing the results with select clients.

Nielsen set-top boxes capture the data for the company. It doesn't work for original Netflix shows like House of Cards.

Netflix has long said it doesn’t need to reveal viewer data because it doesn’t sell ads or pay fees to cable operators. “Collecting ratings on streaming services is an outdated mode of doing business,” said Cliff Edwards, a Netflix spokesman. Amazon, based in Seattle, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

- Bloomberg