ARLINGTON, Va.—PBS has received a significant grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to provide PBS Member Stations with Nielsen Local Dashboards, providing in-depth audience data. The dashboards will display local market linear television audience data to give stations an enhanced understanding of the viewers they reach throughout the day.
Member stations will have access to an interactive dashboard that includes critical audience metrics across all DMAs with PBS Member Stations. With more PBS stations launching ATSC 3.0 (aka “NextGen TV”) that will allow for “hyper-local” services, the dashboards are expected to help stations use the data to better understand their diverse & comprehensive audiences within their local communities.
“Quality data helps us reach viewers where they are to build new connections to the content they know and love,” said Amy Sample, PBS Vice President of Business Intelligence. “Our ongoing collaboration with Nielsen, thanks in part to CPB, now gives member stations a powerful new tool to understand their audience and local community impact. It will help build engagement with longtime fans while creating new ones.”
“Public television stations’ strength is their connection to their communities, and these dashboards will provide valuable, detailed data to help the stations understand their audiences even better,” said Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “CPB is pleased to fund this investment in local public media stations.”
“As long-standing partners with PBS Member Stations in nearly every local market, we are excited to expand our relationship with PBS Corporate to deliver critical audience insights via a new intuitive and innovative dashboard” said Paul LeFort, Managing Director, Nielsen Local TV. “Nielsen’s unique capability to report PBS audiences across all platforms, including Cable Satellite, Over-the-Air, Digital & virtual MVPDs enables PBS Member Stations to demonstrate their engaged audiences to sponsors, underwriters, and community organizations more effectively than ever before. We are grateful to have the support of critical local media partners like PBS.”
Nielsen Local Dashboards will be available to PBS Member Stations starting in late May, and similar data will be made available to CPB. PBS will have an exhibit at the PBS Annual Meeting, May 13-15 in Las Vegas and hold multiple webinars this summer.
