• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, September 23, 2009

Nielsen vice chair Susan Whiting said Wednesday the measurement company hopes to find a way to link with the fledgling consortium of media companies, advertisers and agencies intending to launch their own research initiative.

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement is expected to issue requests for proposal looking for research companies to help study how best to track video consumption across multiple platforms -- and separately, how to maximize viewing data from set-top boxes.

"We certainly would want to participate in that if that made sense," Whiting said after MediaPost's Future of Media Forum.

Whiting added that Nielsen works with the companies behind CIMM, ranging from NBC Universal to GroupM to AT&T, on a daily basis. The 15 CIMM members are interested in obtaining the same types of data and insight as Nielsen.

Still, CIMM has given signals that it is not satisfied with Nielsen's abilities and speed in producing cutting-edge metrics -- although it has also suggested it is not looking to replace it.