As more and more people are watching TV on their mobile devices, TV ratings king Nielsen has decided it needs to know exactly what shows you're watching on your gadgets.
And it is turning to Facebook for help.
Beginning this fall, when Facebook folk take in a movie or TV show on one of their mobile screens, the social network company will begin tracking that data and sending it to Nielsen.
Information such as age and gender of the particular viewer, along with what specific TV shows they are watching, will be sent to Nielsen so advertisers can learn just a bit more about the mobile TV watchers out there.
"The world is shifting radically, and so we had to evolve our measurement so that we could capture all of this fragmented viewing," explained Cheryl Idell, a Nielsen executive vice president, regarding the partnership with Facebook and the reason behind the need to gather this information.
As one might expect, privacy advocates are not exactly tickled with the news.
"Consumers really are not aware of the extent to which Facebook is putting their non-Facebook activity to use," said Julia Horwitz, a consumer protections counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Watching television and surfing the Internet shouldn't necessarily involve Facebook."
Facebook responded to the concerns by saying that the information is being gathered more for audience measurement purposes and not audience targeting.
"We have worked with Nielsen under strong privacy principles," a Facebook spokesman explained. "We don't believe that audience measurement systems should be used to adjust targeting; they should only be used for measurement. This protects the privacy of people viewing ads and ensures that both advertisers and publishers have the same information about the audiences."
According to research firm eMarketer, digital video ad revenue is expected to grow 40 percent this year to become a $6 billion industry.
The television industry is coming off its worst year ever as audience ratings have been down on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research.
In a recent Statista survey (registration/fee), 30 percent of respondents claimed they are watching TV on their smartphones while 74 percent admitted to watching TV on their PC or laptop. Another 37 percent said they watch their favorite shows on their tablets.
