Nielsen Media Research parent VNU on Monday announced plans to acquire the remaining 39.5 percent stake in NetRatings and "fuse" its TV ratings system with the NetRatings online audience measurement service, reports MediaPost. VNU already controls 60.5 percent of NetRatings common stock.

The move would enable advertisers and agencies to look at video and advertising that is carried across TV and the internet. The two companies have already created an interim, "fused" database that matches those in the TV ratings sample with a comparable demographic in the online sample to simultaneously measure TV and online usage.

Some consider fused databases controversial, but they are becoming more popular because of the difficulty of building a single sample that depends on asking respondents to do many tasks.