Source: CBC News Online

Audience tracker Nielsen Media has announced a massive plan to update and expand its reach to include viewers watching TV via the internet, portable video players and cellphones.

Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement is a multistep initiative to “follow the video” and adapt to the new and variable ways people are watching TV, the U.S.-based company said Wednesday.

The plan “is the result of extensive consultation with clients, who told us clearly that we should ‘follow the video’ and deliver integrated measurement of all television-like content regardless of [the delivery] platform,” Susan Whiting, chief executive of Nielsen Media Research, said in a statement.

The plan ranges from efforts that will be fairly easy to execute to complicated initiatives involving new technology.

For instance, by the end of the year, the company will assemble a panel of video iPod users to track what TV programming they download.

Also, in the households where Nielsen has installed TV monitoring meters, the company will add meters on the computers to track online viewing habits.

Nielsen is also developing devices to measure viewership on portable video players and cellphones.

As part of the new plan, Nielsen said it is phasing out its handwritten diaries, which rely on participants to note what they are watching each week, and will begin metering televisions in restaurants, bars and other places where groups gather to watch TV.