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Nielsen to measure TiVo usage
ny_cable_guy writes "The following letter went out to all of Nielsen's clients this morning: 'Working together, Nielsen Media Research and TiVo have developed software that will enable the extraction of tuning, recording and playback information from TiVo's PVR system. TiVo has downloaded this new software as part of a normal system upgrade via phone lines to existing TiVo subscribers across the country. This software would be used only by Nielsen Media Research to retrieve data from sample households, and only with permission from the household, as is the case with all homes in our samples. It is otherwise inactive in non-Nielsen homes.' The full letter has been reprinted here on netWert."
I've always wondered why they don't ask for participatory commercial effectiveness voting. The Tivo would be an ideal device for this type of system. It would work like this:
When a commercial comes on, the viewer(s) are allowed to rate it on something like a 1 - 10 system. The results could be compiled and bad commercials could be automatically blocked (as a viewer preference) while good commercials could be compiled on the Tivo's drive and watched in a manner that the late adcritic.com had assembled.
I *watch* the Superbowl for the commercials. If this kind of system was implemented and widespread, commercials would become more effective and entertaining (or even informative). As a sidenote, it'd be cool if slashdot did something similar. I'm hesitant to mod down a post that I might disagree with even though I still might find it interesting. I.E. - INTERESTING+1, DISAGREE+1.
The world could be a better place, eh?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
So, what possible use could the Nielsons have for this data, since it's precisely the demographic that ignores advertisers?
John
Why else would you own one of these machines?
I own the machine for a variety of reasons. Not watching commercials is not why I ran out to purcahse one. Personally I travel a great deal. When I do get home, I like to be able to watch the TV shows I missed while I was gone. Sure I could that with a VCR, but it would be a pain. (of course the VCR also lets me skip commercials, but its not why I bought it a long time ago.) TiVo makes it simple to do that. When I'm home on Thursday night and Friends is coming on, I don't wait for it to be over. I watch it live. Most people are not going to waste 30 minutes of their life so that they can watch 20 minutes of TV by skipping commericals.
If TV show producers would make shows so interesting to watch that I would always want to see it ASAP (aka Live), then I wouldn't have an oppertunity to skip commericals.
Its not as if Nielson is going to base ALL of their statistical data on the TiVo's viewer's habits. The percentage of TiVo viewers is very small. However, we are real people and so it simply broadens their sample with little effort on their part.
I have to post as an AC because I am a member of one of A.C. Neilson's "panels", but not the one for TV ratings. They have been excellent at keeping my information private. I have never received any unwanted solicitation that could be traced back to my participation with them.
The way compensation works on the consumer panel (scan barcodes on what you buy and transmit once per week with acoustic coupler on scanner, also answer occasional surveys) is that you are awarded points for transmitting information. If you transmit four weeks in a month you get a "Super Scanner" bonus. The points for each week and "Super Scanner" go up if you've been with them longer. Also you get points for surveys.
The points are then used to "purchase" gifts from a catalogue. You scan the barcodes like a survey and in a couple of weeks your gift arrives. I've received about $1000 worth of stuff over the past 10 years and I still have a large number of unused points waiting to build up for a larger ticket item. The items change. Some of the nicer large ticket items include a small tv/vcr combo and a nice astronomical telescope (which I got for my kids).