Lionsgate has reached an agreement with Nielsen to measure its newest multicast network called Moviesphere Gold, the companies announced on Monday.
The announcement comes a little more than a year after Nielsen started measuring Moviesphere, the channel offered by Lionsgate on free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms like Pluto TV and Plex.
Moviesphere Gold is an offshoot of the core Moviesphere channel, offering safe-for-broadcast editions of Lionsgate movies like “Dirty Dancing” and “The Hunger Games.” The network soft-launched on digital broadcast stations owned by Univision several weeks ago, and officially made its debut last week.
Nielsen will aggregate Moviesphere’s FAST audience with viewership of more than 130 local television stations that distribute Moviesphere Gold, the company said on Monday.
“This will give critical market intelligence to better understand its audiences, strategically partner with affiliates and accelerate the channel’s expansion and viewership,” Nielsen said in a statement.
“Nielsen’s new measurement capability will give us a comprehensive view of our audience across traditional and OTA local affiliates via more than 170 stations nationwide for the first time, giving us a major competitive advantage and fueling the growth of MovieSphere Gold,” Derek Tur, the Senior Vice President of Ratings and Research at Lionsgate, said on Monday.
“Our leading streaming technology makes us uniquely capable of providing FAST channel measurement for companies like Lionsgate that are strategically expanding their offerings across different channels,” Amilcar Perez, the Chief Revenue Officer at Nielsen, affirmed in a statement. “As more viewers are embracing ad-supported streaming, we’re proud to provide the industry with the data and insights they need to understand and expand their audiences.”
In addition to its national and local ratings data, Nielsen publishes three ongoing reports that examines the competitive landscape of broadcast, cable and streaming television: “The Gauge” and “Media Distributor Gauge” are offered on a monthly basis, and the “Ad-Supported Gauge” is published once per quarter.
