Work is set to begin immediately on these single-source cross-platform research projects, with results due back in the second half of 2011.

Arbitron will recruit a sample from the 70,000 individuals who already carry its portable people meters (PPMs), and the device will be used to measure TV viewing both in-home and out-of-home. Meanwhile, software meters acquired last year from Integrated Media Measurement Inc will measure online and mobile internet behaviour.

ComScore, meanwhile, will source participants from its existing 25,000-member multi-screen consumer research panel, which tracks online and mobile usage. It will add in data from TV set-top boxes and additional mobile internet usage data from mobile server logs.

CIMM managing director Jane Clarke (pictured) said: “Aside from testing the methodologies, we’re also hoping to gain deeper insights into the way that consumers are using media across three screens.”

Separately from this initiative, CIMM is funding another single-source study of multimedia usage – a US version of the UK-developed Touchpoints survey.

The research is currently in the field, and will be for the next six weeks, a CIMM spokesman said, after which the survey data will be fused with information from other media measurement services to create an integrated channel planning tool.

CIMM was formed in 2009 as a coalition of media owners, agencies and advertisers with the aim of “promoting innovation in audience measurement for television and cross-platform media”.