• by Wayne Friedman , September 28, 2015

To help media companies get faster and easy access to TV research, Nielsen has “opened” up its data in launching a series of programming tools -- APIs (application programming interfaces) -- for its TV services.

Nielsen had been in a beta test with many media buying and selling clients this past summer for these APIs, including AMC Networks, Discovery Communications, Disney-ABC Television, Fox Broadcasting Company, IPG Mediabrands and Univision Communications.

Nielsen’s national TV APIs will launch this week, followed by local TV APIs in November.

The APIs reduces the manual effort in “stitching” data together from multiple reports. As soon as Nielsen publishes TV ratings, the APIs enable machine-to-machine communication to help in many areas -- for programmatic system access, for example.

Media companies can now produce major analyses from Nielsen -- pulling in large volumes of data, creating custom analytics and mobile dashboards.

Bill Berger, vice president of client technology, IPG Mediabrands, stated: “The newly published API’s offer a dramatic reduction in complexity associated with the delivery of national and local television ratings data.”

Thomas Ziangas, SVP of research & insights for AMC Networks, said: “Nielsen’s APIs have already shown the ability to greatly improve the efficiency of our daily workflow and help us uncover critical insights faster.”