MediaPost: Nielsen Plugs New Product, Ratings Service Will Track TV Product Plugs

Nielsen announced the development of a new service that will measure television product placement. While Nielsen is quiet on the details, it was made known that the service will detect product placement within shows, determine foreground or background placement, use of audio, duration and story line integration.

This information will likely require the cooperation of TV networks and producers, which indicates a more widespread sense of urgency in the industry to adapt to perceived threats such as TiVo, the digital video recorder that lets viewers record content automatically skipping commercials.