The Online TV sector is growing bigger daily, the big networks have all gotten a foothold and now the viewing figures of online TV are going to be included in the US television ratings.

Nielsen have revealed that they will be measuring the online television viewing audience by the end of the year. At present, the online numbersc has been omitted from the US ratings as they only look at live tv and digitally recorded TV viewings.

The Internet Meter software will be deployed by the end of 2009 to their People Meter households and will measure the “extended screen”—online television from cable companies, such as OnDemand Online from Comcast and TV Everywhere from Warners.

This shows just how radically television viewing habits have altered. Not only are companies like Comcast and Time Warner experimenting with on-demand online viewing initiatives, the networks themselves now post their top tv shows to the internet. The major TV networks have featured streaming video on their websites for years. And several different networks and studios, including NBC Universal, FOX, and ABC, have banded together to offer Hulu, the hugely successful catch up tv service.

Online tv does have drawbacks for the networks though. Putting shows online is causing problems offline. Re-runs for instance used to make good advertising revenue, but now less viewers tune in because of online viewings.

However everyone including the big networks now seems to realise that the speeding train that is the online TV revolution is an unstoppable force that can be manouvered slightly left or right, but never stopped.

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