It is the latest stage in its strategy to have universal electronic TV measurement in all 210 local TV markets to overcome the limitations of solely using set-top box data for measuring audiences.

Kelly Abcarian, senior vice-president, Nielsen Product Leadership, said: “We’ve made great strides to incorporate data from set-top-boxes into our local TV measurement, however, in that process we’ve uncovered significant challenges with the data.

“To solve for these limitations, especially measuring growing audiences viewing via over-the-air broadcast, we looked at multiple solutions including online recruited panels and quick-query surveys. Ultimately, we concluded that only Nielsen’s proven TV audience meters allow us to address the challenges that come with set-top-box data.”

As of February 2017, more than 25% of viewing to broadcast stations in the 140 markets measured today by diaries came from over-the-air tuning. The market with the highest level was at 50% over-the-air. The meters will also validate set-top-box data by serving as the truth-set to compare against and deliver actual persons-level viewing.