Nielsen will soon start measuring viewing on Netflix and other streaming services, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, which claims to have reviewed Nielsen client documents.

This, according to the report, will begin as soon as next month, and will also include Amazon Prime Instant Video. Nielsen will reportedly analyze audio components to identify what content is being streamed, but it won’t account for mobile streaming as the technology won’t work on that yet, it says.

The report also includes a quote from Nielsen SVP Brian Fhurer: “Our clients will be able to look at their programs and understand: Is putting content on Netflix impacting the viewership on linear and traditional VOD ?”

The streaming content providers aren’t commenting.

It’s going to be quite interesting to see what the numbers look like once that data becomes available, as all anyone has really had to go on in the past is whatever data companies like Netflix felt like sharing.

The data could have a direct impact on the deals that are made between Netflix/Amazon and content creators and licenses.

Of course, without mobile, the picture will still be far from complete, and it’s unclear whether tablet viewing falls into the mobile category. If so, that will be a very significant chunk of missing data.

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