Nielsen says it's prepared to give viewing credit for the 26 live TV channels that Verizon FiOS TV customers will be able to watch through Microsoft's Xbox 360 later this month.
FiOS TV is one of 40-plus content partners Microsoft will bring to its popular game console over the next several months, as the software giant looks to become a central hub for home entertainment. One feature Microsoft has highly touted in the update to the Xbox 360 user interface released Tuesday is the ability to let users find and control content using voice commands and gestures through the Kinect attachment.
"TV content delivered through game consoles is eligible to contribute to ratings as long as the content is encoded and viewed on a metered set," Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen's senior vice president and product leader for national and cross-platform measurement, said in an emailed statement. "We are working closely with the content distributors and console manufacturers to make sure this continues to meet our requirements for detection."
The fact that Nielsen is able to measure viewing on Xbox was one of the key reasons that Viacom, for one, is playing ball with the FiOS-on-Xbox service.
