Television ratings firm The Nielsen Company has been struggling to find new ways to quantify TV viewership now that a large number of people do not even subscribe to cable, and since Netflix steadfastly refuses to report user statistics, Nielsen has decided to turn to Facebook to see what shows people are watching.

Nielsen had already been following Twitter conversations for its Twitter TV Ratings metric and some of its research studies, but now the company is introducing a new “Social Content Rating” system that will use both Twitter conversations and Facebook posts to track what television shows people talk about.

“The development of Social Content Ratings reflects Nielsen’s commitment to continually adapt our services to meet the needs of the industry and is part of Nielsen’s ongoing effort to evolve our measurement to reflect the total audience across screens and platforms,” Sean Casey, President of Nielsen Social, said in a statement. “Nielsen Social measurement is evolving to provide a comprehensive, standardized picture of how consumers are responding to program content through social media, wherever and whenever.”

Nielsen’s new Social Content Ratings system will pull from anonymized data handed over by Facebook, which means that even private conversations about television shows will be mined for data. However, Nielsen was quick to point out that it will read “posts shared with friends, family and publicly, while respecting and in full compliance with consumer privacy.”

The ratings system will continue to measure real-time television viewership, but it will also track the shows people talk about over time, giving television producers a more complete picture of the conversations surrounding their shows.

“By measuring program-related conversation across social networking services, TV networks and streaming content providers can assess the effectiveness of social audience engagement strategies and better understand the relationship between social activity and tune-in,” Nielsen said in its statement.

“Additionally, comprehensive social measurement for programming will support agencies and advertisers in making data-driven media planning and buying decisions as they seek to maximize social buzz generated through ad placements, sponsorships, and integrations.”

Photo by Gustavo Devito