Nielsen has launched Nielsen Streaming Video Ratings to provide total viewership and audience demographic insights such as race/ethnicity, household income, device types inside the home and location. The data will be reported from Nielsen’s NPOWER audience insights in conjunction with linear TV ratings with a goal of giving buyers and sellers a holistic picture of viewers’ total TV viewing time and which types of viewers are engaging with certain services and content.

At launch Streaming Video Ratings will include coverage of 10 top streaming services plus seven types of apps including subscription-based, ad-supported, network, social, gaming and pay-TV operator and virtual pay-TV operator apps.

Nielsen said it estimates for streaming capable homes, streaming has increased its viewing share from 18% to 25% in the past year, with the shift among certain age and ethnic demographics even higher. Among homes that are streaming capable, Nielsen said Netflix is responsible for 7% of total TV viewing time. One-third of streaming capable homes watch three to four SVOD services per month. Almost half of these homes also access an AVOD streaming each month.

Viewers’ changing preference from linear TV to streaming is one of the biggest industry themes. It’s being driven by the proliferation of connected TVs and mobile devices, the launch of high-profile SVOD/AVOD/hybrid streaming services, and the massive investment in original content for streaming. As viewing is shifting, so too are ad budgets. We will have a session digging into this trend at VideoNuze’s upcoming Connected TV Advertising Summit virtual, on June 9th and 10th (registration is complimentary).

Nielsen’s new Streaming Video Ratings complement Nielsen’s Subscription Video on Demand Content Ratings which Nielsen said offer a “more granular view of program and episode level measurement.”

Nielsen’s SVP, Product Management Kevin Rini commented “Now more than ever, it’s important for our clients to have a clear understanding of the streaming landscape, both from a program or content perspective, which our SVOD service does, as well as at a macro view of audience consumption that takes into account the total use of streaming platforms comparable to linear TV.