Advertisers will likely start investing more of their media budgets online when they see the results of a new Nielsen study.

Nielsen Media Research, the firm that calculates national television ratings, will investigate how many people actually watch TV commercials (source: Today’s Wall Street Journal). In November, Nielsen will begin for the first time to provide formal ratings for commercial breaks. According to the WSJ, both TV networks and advertisers expect the new Nielsen ratings will show that viewership declines noticeably when a program breaks for commercials. (Commercials? Are those the things wizzing by when I click my TiVo remote?).

A particularly big drop, according to WSJ writers Brian Steinberg and Brooks Barnes, could fuel advertisers’ push for changes in how ads are incorporated into shows.

It could also accelerate the flow of advertising dollars out of television to the Internet and new digital media.