Say… you show an episode of "Heroes" and your NBC, according to a story on MediaPost today, they now want to know:

".. In its traditional TV format, the show pulled in 16 million total viewers. But add in a repeat episode on Sci-Fi Channel, a streaming video run on the NBC Rewind site, downloads at iTunes Music Store and viewing via PCs with special Intel Viiv technology, and the new total comes to 18.4 million viewers. "

I don't even think that's covering all the times Heroes episodes from other sites on that are not on the list above.  Maybe the total number of viewers is 20 million - and that's significant to the Broadcaster and Advertisers.

Well, there's a Tool for that called the Total Audience Media Interactive Research Tool, according to MediaPost.

"…For advertisers, this new tool gives a particular TV show a total viewer number across all of its venues."

Sounds like a good approach, esp if it captures everything.

"…adding Internet to TV exposure could increase viewer "reach" by 50%. In fact, NBC is looking at various measurements in the digital age. One of the holy grails for marketers and TV researchers has been data that would follow consumers as they move from media platform to media platform"

"….Wurtzel says such research isn't available. But in specially commissioned research with Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), Wurtzel says 11% of those who watched an episode of "Heroes" on TV also watched it on the Internet. In addition, 9% of those "Heroes" viewers have watched a "Heroes" episode exclusively online, and 10% of viewers have watched one episode twice online.

I believe those numbers - I'm part of them - of the 11%.   So, one out 10 viewers decides to watch an episode of Heroes online in addition to watching it on Cable or TV; sometimes twice.   That says at least 10% of the audience of Heroes is online - so yes, you'd want to find a way to add the online numbers to the viewers who saw the content in other ways.

Also, the Social Media tools to be launched on NBC sound right on:

"…Separately, Jeff Gaspin, president of NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content, said NBC.com will become the first broadcast Web site to adopt social-networking tools similar to those on MySpace. It means users can instant message on the same screen while watching NBC shows. This also means having the ability to embed NBC video clips outside the site. "

When people watch online content - sometimes they're doing it while interacting with their friends or community - their multitasking and want to consume the content that way.   And tools facilitating multitasking while being easy to use should extend viewership.   We'll see.