Two interesting stories emerged yesterday about DVR's, the Internet and how Neilson plans to track viewing habits especially in light of DVR's, SlingBox, PSP, Video ipod, WinCE, Cell phone and other wired and wireless devices.

In a Reuters article almost 80% of national advertisers found television placements less effective. In addition, as DVR's reach the tipping point in US homes, they will reduce their placements by as much as 25%.

Last month at the TV Week Media Planning Conference there was a panel focused on DVR's and their impact on Ad rates, participants suggested from a planning perspective it would become more difficult to measure usage patterns and how that would effect Ad rates.

It was suggested that the challenge for Neilson would be in collecting meaningful data across the country. While the current sample size for DVR's is very small about 7% nationally. (VCR's are still in 90% of US homes). The impact today is not that significant however; in the next few years, it is going to be very significant. Therefore, when talking about point of engagement, tracking the viewer across these platforms is going to be the challenge for the Ad planning community with all of these new technologies. Based on the Neilson article they seem to believe they have the tools to effectively measure usage.

Perhaps in response to concerns over DVR and mobile device usage, Nelson announced they would focus their data collection efforts over the next several years on the relationship between television and the Internet. There was some mention out-of-home viewing which could mean any mobile device, it will be interesting to see how they will effectively measure users of video ipods.