An analysis of Major League Baseball’s opening week revealed more than half of the local markets outpacing last year’s viewing.

An estimated 237 million place-based video ads were displayed to adult audiences each month, according to the report.

Spending the most doesn’t necessarily equate to efficiency in viewer recollection. Nielsen IAG found that the top four most memorable Pharma TV commercials in 2009 did not spend the most on their respective campaigns.

Based on Nielsen buzz data, the consumer sentiment towards Apple’s iPad, while leaning positive, is predominantly neutral as users are just getting their first look at the multitasking device and are considering the value of its features.

The Duke Blue Devils have received the largest percentage of online discussion among the Final Four teams in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Kia Motors was the big winner at the 2010 Nielsen Automotive Advertising Awards, earning the title of Most Effective Automotive Ad of the Year.

Advertising spend was hard hit in 2009 – down 1.6 percent compared to 2008, according to Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse, which reports advertising across 27 markets in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa.

For fans of NCAA basketball, it has been an upset-filled start to March Madness. But there are no surprises in household viewing patterns in the top markets tracked by Nielsen.

Younger adult viewers tend to watch more live television out of home than older viewers, according to a Nielsen analysis of the Video Consumer Mapping study conducted by the Council for Research Excellence (CRE).

Nielsen data over the past six weeks shows that “golf” returned as the most relevant topic to Tiger Woods in online conversations.