The Nielsen Company revealed the impact that a performance on the Sunday Results programme of the UK series X Factor had on digital download sales (online and mobile), online buzz and radio airplay for the special guest stars promoting a track.

The Nielsen Company today reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for December 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by 13 percent growths in time per viewer.

2009 music purchases in the U.S. were up 2.1% over 2008 figures, marking the second year in a row that sales exceeded 1.5B units sold according to Nielsen SoundScan.

This year’s college football BCS Championship Game features two undefeated national powerhouses: the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Texas Longhorns. The overwhelming talent and prominence of each program is undeniable. But will they carry enough ”juice” to draw in TV viewers?

Prior to his panel appearance at the 2010 CES, Scott Brown discussed three screen measurement and why TV is really still the ultimate “killer app” when it comes to reaching people.

Not all content is created equal in the eyes of the consumer. Across countries, demographics and content types, consumers have diverse attitudes about paying for content online.

Steve Hasker, Nielsen’s president of Media Product Leadership and Advertiser Solutions, discussed the outlook for media companies in 2010 with a focus on innovation, social networks, and mobile media.

Trends in 2009 include a rise in households that have “cut the cord” by trading their traditional landlines for wireless cellular services and an increase in mobile media device usage among a diverse set of households.

The iPhone and various Blackberry handhelds dominated the mobile device market, while Google, Yahoo! and YouTube led the way as far as most accessed sites and brands on the mobile web.

While many consumers cut back their spending on entertaining outside of the home in 2009, that didn’t necessarily translate to increases inside the home.