Looks like out-of-home TV measurement won’t be happening any time soon after all, much to buyers’ dismay.

Nielsen and IMMI said late Friday that they are putting their new syndicated Out-of-Home Report on hold, with the latest report measuring data through Nov. 9 being the final.

In a statement Friday, the companies blamed the dire economy, saying that there had been “limited economic support for this new measurement service.” Indeed, only two clients, ESPN and Zenith Optimedia, had signed up despite widespread interest in the results.

The service launched in April, with a panel of 2,200 participants. It used cell phones carried by participants to log the TV they were exposed to.

Media people had been especially keen to see viewership for sporting events and CNBC, two things that have a large OOH audience that’s not measured by current Nielsen methodology.

The companies said that they will continue to pursue OOH measurement and didn’t rule out restarting the project at a later date.