( CNN ) -- A TV show can be wildly popular online , inspiring binge-watching marathons and feverish Twitter chatter , but it 's still the number of people turning in via a regular television set that are counted most by networks . In a sign of our increasingly connected age , the Nielsen Company will finally add streaming viewers to its influential ratings of who 's watching what on TV . The new ratings will collect data on people who watch their sitcoms , dramas and crime procedurals on computer , tablet and smartphone screens . Nielsen first announced it was testing programs to track streaming viewers in April . In mid-November , it will release a software development kit that clients can use to figure out who 's tuning in online . Nielsen ratings are used to figure out how many people are watching a show and the demographics of the overall audience . Networks use those numbers to determine how much to charge for ads and even to help make scheduling decisions , such as canceling shows that pull in dismal numbers . Television sets are still the primary way people watch TV , but online viewers are growing fast . They stream shows to non-TV screens , such as computers , tablets and smartphones . Their viewing habits are different , too : They consume entire seasons in single sittings and catch up on `` Daily Show '' clips during commutes . The streaming and mobile audiences tend to skew younger , a coveted age group for advertisers . Nielsen typically tracks demographics such as age , location , gender , race and income . To gather that type of detailed information about online viewers , the company says it will match demographic information with data providers such as Facebook that already collect that information about Internet users . Not all online views will count as part of the main Nielsen TV ratings . Shows that do n't include the same ads online as on TV will be counted as part of separate Nielsen Digital Ratings . Shows streamed directly by networks through their own sites and apps typically include the same set of ads , and those viewers are counted towards the traditional Nielsen totals . This is the latest attempt by Nielsen to catch up with current digital-media technology . Earlier this month , the company announced it was launching Twitter TV ratings , tracking the number of people tweeting about a show and how many people were reading those tweets . Nielsen ratings are typically collected in several old-fashioned ways . For example , it still has households record their viewing habits in handwritten diaries , documenting any show they watch for more than five minutes .
Nielsen , which measures TV ratings , will begin tracking online-viewing habits . A new software development kit will be released to clients in November . While most people still watch TV on televisions , a growing number stream shows online .