An unprecedented 81% of the population (15 years and older) were glued to screens across New Zealand to watch the opening game of the Rugby World Cup, according to the results of a survey conducted by Nielsen.

While the audience size for broadcast primetime remains strong at nearly 200 million viewers, the composition of the programming in the popular 8-11 p.m. time block has changed significantly over the past 10 years.

The court of (social media) public opinion has voted, and the Emmy winners are in. An analysis of online buzz reveals that of all the best actor/actress nominees, Michael C. Hall’s performance as Dexter generated the most buzz.

Traditional primetime is eight to 11 o’clock at night, Monday through Friday, but Nielsen finds that more Americans tune in from 9:15pm to 9:30pm than any other period during primetime.

According to the first mobile media rankings based on audience measurement data from metered smartphone usage, aside from the Android Market app itself, Facebook, Google Maps and Gmail were the most used among U.S. Android users 18 years and older.

On Thursday, September 8, 2011, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress with his agenda for creating jobs in the U.S. The speech was carried live from approximately 7:00PM-8:00PM EDT on 11 networks. The sum of the average audience for those networks was 31,439,080 viewers, with a combined household rating of 20.9.

July 2011 marks the first month of Nielsen’s new “Total Internet Audience” metric, which incorporates hybrid audience measurement data to provide a holistic view of online audience activity. Google was the most visited website in the U.S. in July with 172 million unique US visitors.

Back in Q3 2010, for example, 62 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and only 10 percent were over the age of 55. By Q2 2011, only 46 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and the percentage of those over 55 had increased to 19 percent.

Among NFL teams, the NY Jets generated the most online buzz during the off-season from blogs, message boards/groups, Twitter, Facebook, and online news posts.

When it comes to mobile video apps like YouTube, Hulu or Netflix, consumers say the best things in life are free. According to a new study released by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) and Nielsen, 63 percent of survey respondents said that “free or low subscription rates” is the most important attribute for a video app.