• Reuters, Wednesday, October 1, 2008 9:30 AM

MTV's latest ad strategy includes linking online communities built around its TV programs and tracking viewing of its Web ads and videos. The network is striving to learn more about fans of top shows like "The Hills" or "Real World" through the shows' websites, says Mika Salmi, MTV president.

This week the network signed an agreement with Visible Measures to provide second-by-second viewing data on the MTV videos on its site as well as on outside blogs and social networks "We want the advertisers to know how big we are in online video. Internally, we want to understand user behavior so we can tweak the videos," says Salmi.

The move mirrors a similar push for audience measurement by Nielsen and TiVo.

Read the whole story at Reuters »