Nielsen Media Research plans to launch a service to measure viewing of video-on-demand programming beginning Dec. 11.

The service will be based on information coming from the same People Meter sample Nielsen uses to measure national television viewing.

Advertisers and others have complained about a lack of timely, comprehensive viewer data for VOD programming. While cable operators collect the data, they have not always shared it with advertisers and content owners, and companies such as Rentrak work with some but not all cable operators and satellite providers in aggregating VOD information.

Nielsen said subscribers to its VOD data will receive household, demographic and other detailed audience information.

“Because video-on-demand is a growing business and a potentially valuable new revenue stream for programmers, it is increasingly important for them to understand who is watching their shows and to be able to compare the viewing that is being done via traditional television and VOD,” said Scott Brown, senior VP of Nielsen. “With this launch, we continue to ‘follow the video’ wherever it is broadcast, while fulfilling a commitment we made to clients who told us last year that VOD measurement was a major priority for them.”

Nielsen said it will work with clients to ensure they install watermarking technology so it can identify both their library content and their new, recently presented programs shown via VOD.