• by Wayne Friedman , September 22, 2017

CBS Corp. has joined a growing list of companies subscribing to Nielsen’s new national out-of-home reporting service.

The deal provides CBS with out-of-home viewing data, which include ratings for all programming and commercial content that aired on the network for live-plus-seven days of time-shifted viewing.

For example, CBS says during the most recent NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, out-of-home viewing for the Final Four games on the network delivered an additional average lift of 18.9% -- adding 1.1 million additional viewers per game.

ESPN signed up in April when the services started up; CNN and Turner Sports made deals in July.

David Poltrack, chief research officer of CBS Corp. and president of CBS Vision, stated: “Nielsen’s out-of-home service has been discussed primarily with regards to sports, but we are pleased this agreement covers all of the network’s programming."

The service uses Nielsen’s portable people meter (PPM) technology from nearly 77,000 installed panelists. The service can measure TV viewing in the home as well as hotels, gyms, bars and the workplace.

The service uses fusion methodology across 44 local TV markets with Nielsen's national representative TV panel. This gives a total reach of 65% of U.S. TV homes of people are watching outside of their homes.