The latest from Nielsen’s Video Game Tracking service, shows Activision’s highly-anticipated first-person shooter Modern Warfare 2 benefits substantially from association with its multi-platinum parent franchise Call of Duty. While the title of the game was simply Modern Warfare 2 through early July, Activision recently decided to ensure gamers recognized the November-bound title as a true sequel to 2007’s hit Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by including the Call of Duty prefix in the game title.
By comparing consumer response from Video Game Tracking before and after the name change, …

More than three-quarters of Indian consumers base their choice of mobile service on network or price, according to a new study from The Nielsen Company India.  While CDMA technology has an edge over GSM in both voice and data network performance in India, more than a third (33%) of respondents with CDMA service are likely to consider a GSM brand should they choose to switch carriers. Meanwhile, 62 percent of CDMA customers said that they would consider staying with their existing service provider.
Nielsen also studied CDMA and GSM network performance in 39 …

Sue MacDonald, Research Manager, Online Division
After he retired as the anchorman for CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite often said in later-life interviews that he had one regret as a newsman: he was never invited by NASA to fly into space or join the Apollo missions as the first reporter on the moon.
As the U.S. celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing today, Cronkite is at least sharing the spotlight. The day after his passing at the age of 92, Nielsen’s BlogPulse showed Cronkite to be most-cited person by …

In the early days of the Silver Screen, immigrant characters were not necessarily embraced.  Indeed, it wasn’t until Margarita Cansino changed her name to Rita Hayworth did she hit the big time.  Today, such a move would not be necessary, as attracting Hispanics is one path for a movie to become a blockbuster.  While Latinos make up about 15 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 28 percent of today’s heavy moviegoers.  Almost half of Latinos age 12 to 34 watch 11 or more movies a year (compared to 7 …

New findings from Nielsen’s Television Audience Report show that in 2009 the average American home had 2.86 TV sets, which is roughly 18% higher than in 2000 (2.43 sets per home), and 43% higher than in 1990 (2.0 sets). In addition, there continue to be more TVs per home than people – in 2009 the average U.S. home had only 2.5 people vs 2.86 television sets.

This year about 54% of homes in the U.S. had more than 3 or more television sets, 28% had 2 television sets …

As Myspace.com continues its strategic move toward becoming an “entertainment portal,” the growth to Myspace Music should help cement their presence in this space. Since the site’s launch in September 2008, unique visitors to the music.myspace.com subdomain have increased 190 percent — growing from 4.2 million unique visitors to 12.1 million in June 2009. Year-over-year traffic to the URL has increased 1,017 percent.
When comparing unique visitors of the music.myspace.com subdomain to other sites within the music category in June, it ranked third behind AOL Music and Yahoo! Music and …

Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics
There has been much talk in the Internet industry around the importance of the “long tail” (niche content and service-oriented sites) and how consumers gravitate to it. The central concept is that people tend to be most engaged in content that is core to their specific interests, rather than more generalized content.
Looking at our newly expanded panel that includes more than 30,000 sites, we have found that short tail sites (those with a greater than 1 percent reach) remain the most engaging …

Joshua Hammond, Nielsen Online
Social media can be a great equalizer. Periodically we see a new consumer generated media (CGM) item that breaks barriers and demands a deeper dive. This month, we saw a true “David vs. Goliath” moment play out online for one of the most widely recognized brands in America.
In the spring of 2008, Dave Carroll and his band, the Sons of Maxwell, were traveling to Nebraska from Chicago on United Airlines. What should have been a routine journey turned into yet another cautionary tale for customer …

Overall ad spending stayed afloat in Q1 ‘09 vs. Q1 ‘08
Toward the end of 2008, the global downturn was adversely impacting advertising spending throughout many key markets around the world, with Europe and the Americas struggling more than others.  The exception to this was Asia Pacific (APAC), which appeared to be relatively impervious to the worst of the downturn. Beginning in late 2008, and escalating as the first quarter of 2009 unfolded, the majority of APAC markets were finally succumbing to declining economic conditions with substantial declines in advertising activity. …

The Nielsen Company reported today 200,000 homes have upgraded to digital television in the last two weeks. In the month following the June 12 government-mandated digital TV transition, more than a million homes have made the switch. This recent improvement leaves 1.5 million American households, or 1.3% of the U.S., unable to receive digital television signals through the week ending July 12.
% Of Homes Completely Unready For DTV

Date
Total
White
African American
Hispanic
Asian
Under 35
Over 55

July 12, 2009
1.3
1.0
2.6
2.2
1.9
3.2
0.5

June 28, 2009
1.5
1.1
3.5
2.3
2.5
3.5
0.6

June 21, 2009
1.8
1.3
4.0
2.8
2.9
4.0
0.8

June 14, 2009
2.2
1.6
4.6
3.6
3.2
4.4
1.1

June 7, 2009
2.5
1.9
5.1
4.3
3.1
4.6
1.3

May 24, 2009
2.7
2.1
5.4
4.7
3.2
5.0
1.5

May 10, 2009
2.9
2.3
5.7
4.9
3.4
5.4
1.6

April …