Nielsen Adapting To Modern TV-Watching

Ant wrote to mention a C|Net story discussing fundamental changes in how the Nielsen company tracks viewership. From the article: "CNET says that the Nielsen company is finally taking one of several steps aimed at adapting to the new television/TV audience (those who use TiVo or another service to record prime time shows for viewing later) on December 26th, 2005. Ratings will be broken out by how shows are watched--live, later in the day or within a seven-day period. Over time, Nielsen will also move to measure viewing that takes place via iPods, cellular/cell phones, laptops, and other digital devices that are gaining TV privileges. The company also will track audiences for on-demand fare. The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up."

Comments

Very interesting

[Andy Dodd]

I wonder if Nielsen will start monitoring BitTorrent trackers (not to bust people, but simply to measure popularity.)

I remember at one point, between the top two torrents of LOST, there were 5,000-10,000 seeders, 10-15k completes, and 20-30k people leeching within the first 12-24 hours.

Re:Very interesting

[Have Blue]

Considering that the scale of ratings TV stations care about are usually one or two orders of magnitude larger than that, and Lost is a very highly rated show, it won't be any time soon.

Re:Very interesting

[TubeSteak]

I doubt they'll try to track online downloads, there are companies like BigChampagne that specifically do this stuff, and the various **AA's already get info from them on what's being traded.

One of the main reasons Nielsen backed off the idea of changing their measurement methods a while ago, is that it scared the hell out of TV execs. The TV people were desperately afraid that any change in Nielsen's methods would change the viewer #s & would have a major effect on advertising $$$.

(TFA should be modded -1 overrated for using "paradigm shift")

Re:Very interesting

[Seumas]

Oh, great. So now they're going to have to report that "Bangbus episode 128 was the third most popular broadcast this week" . . .

Re:Very interesting

[Microlith]

I wonder if Nielsen will start monitoring BitTorrent trackers
Nielsen ratings are used primarily to set prices for ad segments.

I'm sure that people go out of their way to strip ads/use dvd rips for torrents. (IE they're screwed on two fronts.)

Re:Very interesting

[zippthorne]

Interesting, but those execs would be shooting themselves in the foot. Advert $$ depends on ROI. (in the long term, the market will relax to this position, but in the short term, companies may actively be measuring and optimizing) So improperly measuring viewership is a fast road to losing all advertising dollars.

What I've been wondering though is why we have neilson anymore at all. With the advent of digital cable, it would seem to me that it's now possible to monitor directly the viewing habits of millions of people. That's a large sample. If made optional, i would even opt-in to just such monitoring, since it would mean that every time i watched my favorite shows i'd be casting a vote to keep it on the air.

Re:Very interesting

[nielsenite]

Is Nielsen interested in BT?

Short answer: Yes, no, and maybe.

(disclosure: I am a Nielsen employee based out of their GTIC facility in Florida. Beautiful place BTW.)

In the past, Nielsen has recorded time shifting as viewing. After all, why go through the trouble of setting your VCR to record a show if you're not going to watch it? And then TiVo had to mess it all up. It constantly records things you don't even ask for. Even if you do end up watching it eventually, it could be a week or a month later.

C|Net missed the real story here, which is how this turned the delicate balance of power between advertisers and content providers upside-down and how Nielsen's reinventing itself to keep time shifting from destroying the television industry. But that's OT.

Now there's Live, Live+SD, and Live+7 feeds as described in the article. The bad part about it is that practically overnight we have to process three times the data we did before, and our delivery windows were tight enough as it was. The good part about it is that we're no longer dependant on the tuner.

No TV? No problem! Here's your A/P meter. Now you can get your content from cable, DVRs, iPods, or *gasp* BitTorrent. It's not our business to know what you've recorded/downloaded/uploaded. It is our business to report on if you actually watch the darned thing (and then only if you've signed up as a Nielsen Home).

That said, we're not quite there yet. Right now we're focused on DVRs, but with this shift in our business makes the rest of it possible.

Re:Very interesting

[nielsenite]

Is the goal to see how many people watch the show or how many people watch the commercials?

You hit the nail on the head. Nielsen provides products (such as Ad*Views and NPOWER) where clients can zoom in on data for just commercials or just content. However, the "currency" data that the MRC has accredited for use in determining commercial pricing doesn't distinguish between them. Before DVRs, it was rather difficult to pass the "currency" minimums without watching commercials. With DVRs it's commonplace. We can't tell the MRC what to do, but we can at least help to keep the "currency" what it is, hence the Live and Live+SD feeds which in theory will measure DVR playback while still catching the commercials.

I think it would be better for the television producers to track the content watching rather than the advertisement watching which would be better for the sponsors.

That goes without question. On the other hand, it's better for the sponsors/advertisers to know that their money isn't getting wasted on a show where nobody's watching the commercials. Historically, Nielsen's been the medium that the two sides agree on. Now the "currency" is shifting toward the content providers and the advertisers are getting left behind.

If it is the commercials only, why would you be interested in bittorrented shows without product placements?

Syndicators are always watching for shows that they can sell. If something does well in non-commercial media then that might factor in to their decision to sell it to distributors. South Park and Sex & The City are shining examples of how that works in that they both started as independant non-commercial programs which were later were syndicated to sponsored cable distributors.

Re:Very interesting

[tommertron]

Mod parent up.

WIth so many digital cable boxes out there, monitoring what exactly what people watch should be so much easier now. Neilsen has such a small sample that I'm sure it's very inaccurate. They're going more for an accurate demo-mix than raw numbers. If the cable company got into the tracking business, they'd make a lot of money, and I'm convinced it would help good shows thrive. People are watching Arrested Development, we just don't know about.

And... end of rant.

Re:Very interesting

[slashname3]

With cable companies and dish networks pushing DVRs how are companies using Neilson since many of those DVRs allow users to skip over commercials? Personally I have been using MythTV for almost a year now. I never watch live TV anymore and as a result I see very few commercials. If I understand correctly broadcasters use Neilson ratings to set the price of commercials on different shows. With DVRs becoming more common allowing more people to skip commercials won't this make Neilson ratings useless and ultimately cause advertisers to reduce spending since they are not really reaching as many people as are watching the shows. And by

The scary part of all this is that recently there has been talk about letting cable companies offer channels ala cart. I figure this will eventual evolve into user paid support for channels and ultimately into users paying for each show directly. This should result in commercials getting dropped from shows supported in this method. But this will lead to commercial placements directly in the shows.

Re:Very interesting

[cyriustek]

As a former broadcaster, I think this is a step in the right direction. However, the rating system television will still be extremely flawed.

The current system relies on moths that the broadcasting industry call, "sweeps." Most notably of these months is the May sweeps since a large number of ad agencies buy their advertisements on this books ratings. This system allows the television companies to ignore a number of months and play repeats and poorly produced programs, but still get good ratings. Basically, it is like ignoring your homework for school until the last week of class, and you whole grade is based on the final exam. It is a poor measure of your knowledge, and a poor measure of the quality of programming and viewership.

Instead of having months in which the television stations and networks can ignore their audiences desires, and still having good ratings, there should be a constant sampling system that ignores "sweep months." With this method, the stations and networks would have to work harder and provide more quality entertainment to get higher scores. Additionally, advertisement buyers may have a better sampling in which they can spot trends are more effectively target their advertising dollars.

Re:Very interesting

[MindStalker]

You don't know what your talking about, let me tell you, I know someone who worked for Neilson.. and umm.. ok end of joke.

But seriously I do, he described how this new system worked a year ago (when they were debating rolling it out) basically as they can't get inside the DVR to track your info. The new system uses a special box that does a combination of pattern recognition and special closed caption style program information encoding. The preferable method obviously is for the program to include its own information on a digital piggyback (closed caption style) so that the Neilson box can read it (no matter when you actually watch it they know what you are watching and when it was supposed to be aired and can compare to current date/time). They also use some basic pattern recognition to local commerical and other small shows that are opting to include this information.

Re:Very interesting

[slashname3]

Please please tell me they are including information like this on broadcasts! It should make commercial detection much easier. Instead of being able to automatically skip about 90% of all commercials we can get 100% of them. That wuold be good! :)

Re:Very interesting

[MindStalker]

Edit:

They also use some basic pattern recognition for local commerical and other small shows that are not opting to include this information.

Re:hey

[get out of debt]

Probably by downloads, I don't think tracking companies really go out for precise data. I think their current system is based on taking data from small samples in each geographic location(major cities etc).

I did the Nielson ratings for five years...

[mark-t]

And the only thing they didn't know about my tv watching was exactly what I was watching if I was just playing a tape. But they sure knew which programs I had recorded for later viewing. It was one of the many subjects that came up during the orientation.

Re:I did the Nielson ratings for five years...

[bbbaldie]

I just pray that this proves that reality TV is not as popular as they would have us think it is . . .

Re:I did the Nielson ratings for five years...

[bergeron76]

So how exactly does Nielson work?

Re:hey

[Seumas]

My guess would be that they will include iPod users into their Nielson households. I wonder how much people who do the Nielson box things get paid for it? While I would hate to ever think of participating, it might be worth it if it meant I could get my cable bill paid out of it each month.

This could change everything...

[mr_zorg]

Hooray! I've been one of the new Nielsen TiVo households for about a year now and I'm thrilled to see them finally starting to break things out this way. The best part is it's easy, I don't have to do anything different, they just collect the data from TiVo. Finally shows like Mythbusters, Iron Chef, etc., might finally get some respect!

What about those of us on Usenet?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV pirates are people too.

Re:What about those of us on Usenet?

[Seumas]

So, this pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel sticking out of his pants and the bar tender says "do you know you've got a steering wheel sticking out of your pants?" . . .

Re:What about those of us on Usenet?

[Dwedit]

The rules of usenet:
1st RULE: You do not talk about usenet.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about usenet.

Re:What about those of us on Usenet?

[Taladar]

3rd RULE: If you talk about usenet you call it "Google Groups"

Re:What about those of us on Usenet?

[Universal Indicator]

It's driving me nuts!!

One other thing I thought of

[Andy Dodd]

Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast. It would allow media content to be distributed MUCH more easily. I recall someone claiming that BitTorrent was now consisting of 25-50% of Internet backbone traffic - Imagine how much that could be reduced if multicast were used, given that probably 90% of that 25-50% are duplicate packets, if not more.

Unfortunately, we may not ever see IP multicast in its present form on the backbone. It requires too much additional memory in routers, and I have yet to see ANY information on how to find a free multicast address and reserve it for use. It's simply too hard for the average programmer/user to use.

I saw a couple of links to a Japanese multicast project known as Xcast, which would simply put multiple destination IP addresses in a packet, while it isn't as scalable as IP multicast, it's a hell of a lot easier to use. Unfortunately, since it isn't quite standardized yet, it's basically only supported on a handful of test networks, and I wouldn't be surprised if it stays that way.

In this day and age of mass media distribution, some form of multicast, even a limited one that only allows 8-16 destinations per packet, is desperately needed - so why the hell is there still no viable solution?

Re:One other thing I thought of

[Shakrai]

Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.

Maybe a little offtopic, but this is a technial question that I've always had -- how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?

I ask because if you can't account for lost packets then it's going to make your bittorrent idea a lot harder. I suppose it would work well for a stream that you wanted tens of thousands of people to see -- but in a bittorrent scenario you need to get the entire file. Using multicast would probably require a _huge_ rewrite of the bittorrent protocol.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[NickCatal]

Take a look at Newsgroups and how things are released there... if one client doesn't get all the packets, then there are always parity files that are distributed with the releases... Now, assuming you wnated to add multicast support to Bittorrent, if a client misses a few packets they just go back and request it again... But I doubt you would want to use regular old BT... it isn't designed for Multicast networks...

Re:One other thing I thought of

[woolio]

BitTorrent was now consisting of 25-50% of Internet backbone traffic

I'm not sure Multicast would improve things much... It would only work if a large number of people on neighboring networks want to download the SAME file at roughly the SAME time...

It would probably be good for streaming TV over the internet and such. But for bit-torrent as it is, I don't see how it would help....

NOW, what could be interesting is to make a "batch" version of BitTorrent. Users would queue up the files they wanted to download. Then sometime later in the day, which (hopefully) many users had all requested the same file, multicast could be used to transmit its contents. Without some type of queueing, the same file could be transmitted to the same network *multiple* times in a single day (or hour, etc).

Re:One other thing I thought of

[mmontour]

how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets?

That's a problem for a higher-layer protocol. I previously worked for a company that received live stock-market data via multicast. Each message included a sequence count, and if you did not receive some messags then you would ask the exchange to re-transmit a range of sequence counts. These re-transmissions would be mixed in with the regular data stream, with a flag to indicate that they were retransmissions.

I haven't worked with multicast since that company cratered, but I would suspect that there are standard protocols available to perform this sort of NACK / retransmission. Another approach would be to use forward error correction, as used by satellite TV broadcasts.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[Xugumad]

Various possible solutions:

Clients can request individual packets are resent to them alone (works well if packet loss is very low).

Server continuously re-broadcasts data for a few days, so if you miss it the first time, you can get it the second/third/fourth/whateverth time (generally referred to as carousel).

Forward Error Codes: http://rfc3453.x42.com/

Re:One other thing I thought of

[Andy Dodd]

Multicast is at a lower layer than UDP and TCP, but due to the nature of multicast, it will not actually work with TCP, only with connectionless protocols such as UDP.

You're correct in that dropped packets would cause a problem for BT, since everyone needs the entire file. That said, if a client even received only 50% of a file via multicast, that would be 50% less that would eventually need to be handled via unicast, or via another multicast transmission. In reality, probably most clients would get 80% or more of the data in the first multicast go-around, and probably could get close to 95% or so after two full rounds of multicast. Eventually a unicast fallback or multicast rebroadcasts would be needed, but even with quite a bit of fallback to unicast or multicast rebroadcasting, far less data would need to be transmitted overall.

For example, suppose 100 clients downloaded a file. Those 100 clients only maintain a share ratio of 0.1:1. With multicast, the system would still perform extremely well, as even with 50% packet loss, each client would receive on average 5 complete copies of the data. (Of course, there is a nonzero probability that someone would still have a few holes, but those holes would be quite small.) In the current system with unicast, even if the clients maintain a 1:1 share ratio (counting retransmissions due to losses towards the client's upload), each client would wind up receiving less than a full copy - a share ratio higher than 1:1 is required for the system not to break.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[6e7a]

how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?

I believe Forward Error Correction can account for missing and dropped packets. From Wikipedia: "FEC is accomplished by adding redundancy to the transmitted information using a predetermined algorithm." I remember someone presenting this solution at the IETF many years ago.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[TenLow]

Forgive me for not knowing what i'm talking about, but why does it seem like people are talking about using bittorent as either multicast or non multicast? Couldnt you say have it do both? If 100 people download the same file via multicast, would i be wrong to assume not everyone would be missing the same packets? It seems like with the first goaround, there would be a minimum of one complete file, so while waiting for the next multicast, the various bittorrent clients could fight it out peer to peer style and seed each other for the missing bits.

Thus concludes me speaking without knowing what i'm talking about.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[MindStalker]

Well bittorrent has many uses. One of which is for an individual to distribute a file to many people (AKA 3dgamers downloads for example) lets say that the main distribution point is sending the files bit by bit in order in a multicast style setup, and you join in during the middle of a cast, you simply start downloading from the middle (because bittorrent is designed to handle mixed up pieces downloaded out of order) till then end, from there you can either wait for the cast to restart or download the missing peices from everyone else. This would mean two things, the upload for the initial seeder/caster would need to be set at a reasonable rate. Sure your network neighbor won't be able to get the file at 1Gb/s but if you pushed it at that speed the routers would be expected to hold the entire file and I'm sure they would dissagree (whats the max timetolive for a multicast packet?? anyone know?).

Re:One other thing I thought of

[Andy Dodd]

You pretty much summed up what I said by having a fallback of either unicast (i.e. the way it's done now) or multicast rebroadcasting.

Initially a full multicast transmission of the file would be done, and after that, the tracker could look and see which parts of the file were missing at the greatest number of clients. The tracker would then have the clients which DO have that file retransmit the parts that most clients need with another round of multicast broadcast. Once less than a certain percentage of connected clients (say, 5%) actually need a particular piece, the tracker would then have those pieces sent in the old (unicast) way to the clients that still need it.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[TenLow]

ok sorry, no coffee + out of cigarettes = poorly worded redundant posts.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[hr raattgift]

Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.

Some do. Ask yours. There are two principal availability models for native multicast that I know of. Both require asking your ISP to talk sparse-mode PIM and to exchange multicast NLRI with you via BGP. At least one large scale provider charges a nominal fee for doing this at all, at and least one large scale provider does this for free but caps the amount of multicast traffic you can send without making an extra arrangement.

The principal problems with multicast are operational (not many people know how to set up and debug it, although Sprint's mulitcast pages are an OK start. However, IP multicast is only reasonably scalable when you restrict yourself to single-source trees, but on the other hand SSM (with PIM-SM and BGP) is coincidentally the least operationally difficult approach.

The main engineering problem is that you inevitably create state in routers for each source that is being listened to (you can optimize out state for silent and unsubscribed sources) in all the routers from the source to each destination. In practice there is "collateral damage" state in most routers in a network in between sources and subscribers. This is cut down somewhat by using Rendezvous Points and distributing those using anycast and MSDP, which moves work from border and intermediate routeers into the RPs. This works well, but incurs a cost which increases as multicast traffic increases. (Essentially, you can drown your RP with traffic. You can distribute RP work, but that then increases control traffic on the routing or source-discovery planes, and there will be some limit.)

In short, the model which scales well enough to make multicast essentially "free" beyond the cost of IP connectivity, is limited by the number of multicast transmitters. The number of subscribers is barely a concern, and the sender's bandwidth is unlikely to pose an engineering issue at any speed less than a gigabit per second.

Making material with lots of FEC or which is loss-tolerant available via SSM is cheap and easy. An obvious application would be live TV content, and that could take advantage of multiple parallel groups -- clients would "slow start" by subscribing to a low-bandwidth stream, then graduate to other (or more) streams if reception works well. Likewise, if whatever stream they are subscribed suffers from too packet loss, the source can unsubscribe it and use a lower-bandwidth/lower-quality one instead.

From the originator's perspective, this is exceptionally easy: originator announces the sources and just blast multicast packets out to its ISP. The ISP will simply drop any traffic in groups that aren't subscribed-to by someone. The originator is thus limited by the bandwidth out to the provider, and nothing else.

If the originator has loss-tolerant content to begin with, or a loss-tolerant encoding (with lots of forward-error-correction or redundancy for example), the originator doesn't even have to cope with network losses. This means the audience can be *huge*.

A file distribution model is plausible using this type of system... you would just "build in" the retransmissions that inevitably would be required because of network losses. The problem is in feedback: you probably don't want to transmit if there are no listeners; you probably want to transmit at about the greatest minimum speed at which there is no congestion-related loss observed by your subscribers; you probably want to tune your retransmissions/redundant transmissions based on client needs. All of this requires a communication from receivers back to the source.

If there are lots and lots of receivers, you risk drowning the source in feedback.

If there are very few receivers, then this is a very heavyweight mechanism for sending data to them. Moreover, if the receivers can also be transmitters, you will get better performance by ha

Re:One other thing I thought of

[hr raattgift]

Initially a full multicast transmission of the file would be done, and after that, the tracker could look and see which parts of the file were missing at the greatest number of clients.

If there are large numbers of clients, this operation could be very expensive for the tracker.

The other consideration with this approach, unfortunately, is that there is a serious mismatch between the rate at which the fastest-connected and slowest-connected clients can absorb the multicast traffic. If the source transmits at, say, 2Mbps, there will be about 50% packet loss observed by people with 1Mbps (down) DSL connections, with worse losses as you decrease the last-hop down bandwidth. The loss doesn't really matter to the source (there is no direct feedback), but you aren't going to make up for massive losses efficiently by repeating a multicast stream for the benefit of the clients observing the worst loss.

This is where the P2P+unicast-TCP distribution system can demonstrate its strength, if the P2P overlay routing system could take link/pair performance into account.

If that were the case, the apparent optimization of allowing fast/low-loss downloaders to receive file parts at high speed via multicast, would look less attractive than the current system where fast/low-loss downloaders may find themselves taking parts of files from dial-up users. Investing time in a fix for that kind of pessimal behaviour is a good idea, and probably more productive within the unicast-P2P framework than in working out a parallel multicast mechanism, not least because multicast is not widely available even to DSL-connected clients.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[hr raattgift]

Clients can request individual packets are resent to them alone (works well if packet loss is very low).

But it works badly when lots of clients observe packet loss. The worst case is if you have many many clients listening to a multicast source, and there is loss on the line between the source and its ISP. The source might be drowned in retransmit requests, much like in a DDOS attack.

Carousels are fine and dandy, but if you have missed just one chunk of a large file, you may have a long wait, and lots of bandwidth wasted by sitting on the multicast stream until the repeat. Scheduled rebroadcasts are an optimization: if you know when your missed piece is going to be rebroadcast, you can unsubscribe until a little before that time, so you don't have to receive all the bits you already have.

However, odds are that for any reasonably large file, you will be better off finding another client who did receive your missing bits, and retrieving them from it, than waiting for the "rerun" transmission.

Re:One other thing I thought of

[Andy Dodd]

As to keeping track of what clients have what being expensive for the tracker - It doesn't seem THAT expensive compared to the amount of data being transferred because that's basically what the BT tracker does.

The issue of slow downloaders is a good one, but even if only 20-30 of the initial clients could download at the full broadcast rate of the initial seed, there would be a HUGE performance improvement, because there would be 20-30 seeders in a very short time.

Note that the problem you mention is where the limitations of explicit multicast I mentioned earlier (do a Google search for xcast) would actually be beneficial.

As far as the lack of multicast being widely available - see my original rant on lack of multicast availability that started this thread. Unfortunately, the xcast project is even more limited in its support (basically only in a handful of research networks). Too bad, because the basic idea behind xcast (multiple destinations in an IP packet a la SMTP) is much simpler for both programmers and router manufacturers to implement. (And yes, I know that such an approach does have its drawbacks in terms of ability to abuse. Most likely the advantages of a system with a limit of 8-16 destinations per packet would far outweigh the potential for abuse.)

It's about time!

[PurifyYourMind]

I always doubted the reliability of Nielsen ratings, especially given the cancellation of so many great shows (e.g. Family Guy.. for awhile anyway). Moreover, I have never, ever known anyone who's been in a so-called "Nielsen family". I guess my friends and I aren't average enough to make it into the sampling demographic.

One reason advertisers loved the web (at first, at least) was because it's possible to get exact numbers of "viewers", know what viewers are doing (clicking through, clicking then ordering, etc.), and not miss any viewers simply because they didn't get lucky enough to be sampled. I can't imagine being an advertiser trying to track my television ad results... what, survey everyone who walks in my store?

Re:It's about time!

[KrisW]

I had a Nielsen box in my house for a while. Later on, I actually found out it had been an accident of sorts, and it had actually been intended for a more "normal" family down the street.

I fear that I may be partially responsible for the ever smaller section of TV listings on the TV Guide Channel, as I used to leave it (it was actually the Preview Channel at the time) on for hours at a time when I was out of the room to confuse "the man".

Re:It's about time!

[Have Blue]

The problem is that "great" and "popular" have never been all that tightly correlated, and that there are demographics far larger than yours with different tastes.

Re:It's about time!

[6e7a]

I guess my friends and I aren't average enough to make it into the sampling demographic.

Doesn't Neilson require you to be white trash to qualify? ;-)

Re:It's about time!

[Neoncow]

I don't really know about the Neilsen system, but isn't the point of being monitored to make sure that the television companies can more accurately give you TV that you want to watch (of coures, so they can sell more ads)?

By sabotaging your input to Neilen, aren't you sabotaging your own 'vote' to the TV agencies? or maybe I'm just naieve =)

Re:It's about time!

[KrisW]

By sabotaging your input to Neilen, aren't you sabotaging your own 'vote' to the TV agencies? or maybe I'm just naieve =)

No, you're not being naive. That was sort of the point of my post, though I could have put it more clearly.

and my All-In-Wonder?

[Down8]

Still no wat for them to track my TV usage on my PC? I use my AIM Radeon quite often.

-bZj

Re:and my All-In-Wonder?

[Down8]

AIW, of course.

-bZj

Re:hey

[mark-t]

Nothing.

Not a dime.

Oh... but they do encourage you to go out and buy video products like VCR's or DVD players, for which they will offer a small rebate.

This won't change TV companies...

[Altima(BoB)]

These steps won't change the television companies' opinions on these new methods of watching TV, because their main use of these ratings has been to determimine how much they can charge for advertisisng time. A lot of PVR recordings can fast forward commercials, TV shows for ipods that Apple sells have no ads and anything downloaded via Bittorrent skips the ads. When consumers take control, first on their agenda is getting rid of ads, I'd daresay moreso than mere timeshifting. Considering that these networks enjoy lavish profits because of advertising, now that official ratings acknowledge these ad-less forms of viewership their ad time is likely to diminish in price.

This could lead the broadcasters stepping up their rather obnoxious practice of putting advertising around the edges of the screen during programming, as bittorrent downloaded shows can't get around that.

God I HATE advertising... It's killing television (not hard, but still...)

Re:This won't change TV companies...

[arkhan_jg]

This could lead the broadcasters stepping up their rather obnoxious practice of putting advertising around the edges of the screen during programming, as bittorrent downloaded shows can't get around that.

It is possible to cut off a number of pixels around the outside when you transcode using a number of apps. Main use of it so far (or at least when I ad-strip and transcode my own digital tv recordings, anyway) is to clip off black bars around a transmitted signal, such as you get when they force a different aspect ratio, so it wouldn't be that hard to do the same with a persistant ad-bar.

An ad-bar that came and went, especially if it semi-transparently overlayed the show could be harder to get rid of, as it would be if they started replacing the station bug with small picture-in-picture ads - best you can really do then is just blur that section, which reduces the visual distraction, but isn't ideal.

Another thing that might happen is that programming producers may sell their shows directly for download, at hi-res with no-ads, or a free version with ads left intact. Something with minimal DRM would be accepted by most. The handful in low-res on iTunes is a start in that direction, I think we may see a lot more of that, though personally I won't accept any DRM, which I know puts me in a small minority.

Currently, broadcast stations sell the ads to make a profit, and programming is just a method of getting people to hang around between the ad-breaks. Media boxes and tivo are obsoleting that practise. Their option is perhaps to switch to some sort of subscription service, and drop the ads - similar in principle to the BBC. Of course, cable and satellite were often launched on that premise - pay our subscription, and get no ads - but the lure of the adman's money has caused them to put more and more advertising in anyway. About time customers got a chance to tell the broadcast companies how they want their programs (time-shifted and no ads!), and I'm sure someone will be able to connect program makers with customers money in a new big way eventually.

Re:This won't change TV companies...

[Altima(BoB)]

Look at the BBC. They don't do advertising, yet they've made some of the finest shows in the history of television along with one of (if not the) best news services in the world. This is done with a very modest tax when you buy a TV. This tax can also be avoided if you just buy a monitor television with no tuner, thus only those who use TV pay the tax. Does the idea of a tax sound like anathema to you? You already sort of pay it in the states if you ever get cable television, you're paying extra for more channels that show you more ads.

I still think advertising is killing TV.

Stop stretching shows

[Generic Guy]

Good. Maybe, just maybe this will help end the new era of TV stations stretching their shows one (or like Cold Case, several) minutes later than their scheduled run time. I swear they started runing these long to screw with TiVos and VCRs.

Re:Stop stretching shows

[Professor_UNIX]

Maybe, just maybe this will help end the new era of TV stations stretching their shows one (or like Cold Case, several) minutes later than their scheduled run time.

Cold Case doesn't run long because the show is more than 1 hour long, Cold Case runs because of the god damn football games running long, then that pushes 60 Minutes back and then Cold Case can start anywhere from 5-45 minutes late. I wrote a letter to CBS about this idiotic schedule they have but I of course received no response.. why would I? They don't care about DVR users since we don't watch their commercials. Other stations that usually play NFL football games either do (or used to at least) put crap shows for about an hour after a football game was scheduled to end so that if the game went longer than the time allotted they could cut into the show.

What I've had to resort to doing is setting Cold Case to record for an extra 60 minutes to ensure I catch the ending, but this in turn conflicts with other shows I want to record in the 9pm hour on Sunday (Desperate Housewives, Law and Order, etc.). Since I've only got two tuners in my PVR right now I need to decide which I don't get to watch because CBS's incompetent fall schedule. Soon I'll be adding a third and fourth tuner to the MythTV box so this will become less of an issue, but it still leaves me with a 2 hour recording block for a 1 hour show just because they can't nail down their time slots.

Re:Stop stretching shows

[Professor_UNIX]

Maybe you could get a life and DO something with it rather than waste it on being a passive couch potato...

Ummm, DUH, that's why I have a PVR in the first place. When I'm bored I can check out what's recorded on my PVR rather than being tied to the television schedule. I watch TV when *I* want to, not when the programmers want me to. Now, if you want to sit in your ivory tower and sip your $10 a cup lattes and debate whether television programs are worth watching, be my guest, but I find some of them to be an entertaining diversion from real life.

Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

With respect to television usage, which is pretty much just ambient/background news stream, and not internet usage, I've wanted for the longest time for my provider to track not just my "usage" (customer watched show X on channel Y at time Z), but my NON-usage (customer was watching show X on channel Y and CHANGED channels at time Z, and returned or did not return).

Why? So they can match that with my desire to avoid StupidShit (tm). At times I'll bounce from CNN to Fox to MSNBC to Bloomberg when the same stupid commercial is played for the ninth time that hour.

Heh, " To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image:" ... the word? Itches. Yes, yes it does.

Re:Fantastic!

[penttan]

Dislcaimer: I work for a company that does television audience measurement (in Europe). In most countries the viewing data is collected by a peoplemeter device installed at the panel household's tv set. It automatically identifies the channel and can measure viewing behaviour second by second, although one minute is usually the smallest reported time. This kind of data makes analyzing all the things you mentioned (and much more) possible. For example, the gain and loss analysis of a program shows minute by minute chart of where the viewers are coming from (from another channel or just turned tv on) and where they are going. There are several software products that are used to analyze TV viewing data and the TV companies do use them. If the data is collected using diaries where the smallest reported time may be 5 or 15 minutes, this kind of analysis is more difficult. I believe that diaries are still used at some parts of USA.

...what?

[greyjoy]

The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up.

This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before? It's always nice to give voice to wishful thinking, but, c'mon, at least let your excuse have some relevance to your fantasies.

Also, I hope they take into account that most people who have videos on their iPods will overwhelmingly be well-off white people. I'm sure they're a valuable population statistic, but please don't let their viewing habits have too much weight in the overall viewing summary. I don't want every network to be (more) stacked with Dharma and Greg clones...

Re:...what?

[node 3]

This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before?

From the summary (in fact, the exact part you quote!), "The audience is taking control." Note the absence of the word "companies". They're talking about people taking control of their TV and how they watch it, not writhing throngs of couch potatoes taking over the local NBC affiliate.

Also, I hope they take into account that most people who have videos on their iPods will overwhelmingly be well-off white people.

They really don't care if you're white or not, just whether they can make money off of you.

I don't want every network to be (more) stacked with Dharma and Greg clones...

If that's what brings in the cash, that's what they'll show. But your cynicism is misplaced. By having better information, they'll be able to see that there's a market for shows which cater to various segments of the population. With better information, the big corporations will be more comfortable taking risks on "innovative" or non-mainstream shows (mostly because they won't really be risks so much, since they'll have a better idea of how a show or idea will go over).

Re:hey

[Seumas]

Uh . . . Why exactly would you volunteer to be a tracked bovine for corporate media, then? Even a fucking GRIP and KRAFT SERVICES guy gets paid by the media and entertainment industry for his time and services.

God damn people are stupid. From this point on, I declare that if you are an uncompensated Nielson home - you must be executed.

Nielsen? Still needed?

[dada21]

One of my employees is a Nielsen viewer. I can't believe those guys are still going to keep ticking.

With video watching moving towards an on-demand basis, will advertisers really need to hire a company to track viewer preferences? The best thing advertisers can do is replac Tivo/MCE/Myth/whatever with completely free tuner/PVR units. Tivo can already tell advertisers what commercials were watched or skipped, what parts of a TV show were paused or reviewed, what channels are bounced between most often, etc. As TV becomes quickly available through iTunes or direct download, IPTV, and other "right now" provisions, we'll see our information traded in exchange for free TV.

I still believe that TV show production companies will find ways to offer advertising and spyware-free shows (a la the DVD format) for those willing to pay extra. Remember, advertising only exists for shows that are being watched in real time. Video taping, downloading, PVR, whatever means ads will likely be skipped or deleted altogether. We will definitely see more product placement as well as more pop-up advertising on top of TV shows as time goes on. Technology is quickly destroying the efficacy of advertising, so advertising will either have to morph or be left in the dust.

Nielsen, IMHO, is already being put into the incinerator. Their services were nice (*pat on head*) but its time for the new kid to play.

I remember...

[evil agent]

When I was just a little kid and I thought that just by tuning in to a show I would be increasing their ratings. Ah, the innocence/ignorance of youth... Please tell me I wasn't the only one!!

They've already been recruiting.

[syntax]

For those unaware, Nielsen has been allowing people to sign up directly on their TiVo's for a while now.

Re:They've already been recruiting.

[Eraser_]

I don't seem to recall seeing this option. Elaborate? Or maybe it's better if the stations don't know how much Star Trek I watch...

Re:hey

[mark-t]

Yup... I'm a moron.

When I was first offered the opportunity, I agreed because of what amounts to little other than unpleasant childhood memories.

Let me 'splain.

As a youth, I had noticed that it seemed to happen all too frequently that I would really get into a new TV show and it would be cancelled, often halfway through its first season. I *HATED* that this happened to me.... all the time. Like, almost every single year there'd be a new show that I'd really like and it would get canned after 10 to 12 episodes.

Of course, having heard of the ratings system for measuring program popularity, I assumed that it was only because there weren't enough people with my kinds of tastes in TV programming on this system. I had naively figured that if I were a Nielson member, I'd actually have a voice that might be loud enough to stop my favorite shows from being cancelled.

Turns out that I was wrong. My favorite shows were still getting canned.

Suffice to say that I'd *NEVER* agree to do that again... probably not even if they paid me enough to cover my tv bill.

Please?

[Rydia]

Can we please restrain ourselves from ridiculously superficial overgeneralizations in articles? The article submission was great until the last sentences... "The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up." In addition to being gramatically incorrect, is both inaccurate and perjurative to the whole submission, ruining what should have been a pretty interesting intro to an article about a shift in Nielsen's ratings, which is pretty interesting and somewhat important stuff. Is the audience really taking control? Because we can time-shift? We can do that with VCRs. Because we can do things with live television? Kind of, but, again, you could do something similar with a VCR. Are the TV companies scrambling to catch up? Nielsen is changing their methodology because these gadgets are leading to UNDER-reporting of audiences, so doesn't that indicate that they're not doing so badly after all?

There's been a rash of this lately, too... The online dictionary and "finally someone realizes that language evolves" is another egregious and recent one. If you want to comment on the story, comment in the comments. Just report the story in the submission. Saves us from reading something that is often stupid and taints the whole discussion from the get-go.

Re:Please?

[meta-monkey]

I loved the one yesterday about how it's impossible to underestimate the impact that Babylon 5 of all things had on television. Laughable.

Stop announcing the measurement days

[jonsmirl]

I wish Nielson could figure out that pre-announcing the date of US sweeps week ruins TV viewing. For one week out of the year every channel simultaneously has great programming. Then for the other fifty one weeks it sucks. Advertisers are stupid for believing that sweeps week is at all representative of viewing patterns. Imagine how advertising rates would have been set if 9/11 had happened during sweeps week - cable news would have had top share.

Re:Stop announcing the measurement days

[nielsenite]

I wish Nielson could figure out that pre-announcing the date of US sweeps week ruins TV viewing.

We're working on it. Google for "local people meter". That will put an end to sweeps in most markets.

While you're at it, tell your congressman to kill off H.R.3298 and S.1372 so we can actually do it.

Re:hey

[jqpublic13]

I've been a Nielsen "household" for about six months now. If I recall my agreement correctly, I received $100 at the time they started monitoring, and $50 for every additional six months they have their equipment attached to my television. In addition, if my television/DVD player/VCR is damaged (for *any* reason!) during the time they have their equipment attached, Nielsen will pick up 50% of the repair costs.

It's almost completely transparent to my viewing experience; I only have to push a button on a remote when I first turn on the television, then again if I've a) watched continuously for about an hour, or b) changed the station. Since I personally have time to watch more than one TV show, I almost never have to do anything beyond the original login...

MythTV disqualified me

[mmontour]

Earlier this year I was invited to become a Nielsen viewer (in Canada). The first problem was that I did not have a telephone landline, and their box needed one in order to phone home with its data. They initially said there was nothing they could do, but a couple of months later they called back and offered to pay for the landline if I had one installed.

They then asked for details about my TVs and such, down to the brands and model numbers. This is becuase they had to hook up monitoring equipment to measure the channel selected by the tuner, whether the VCR was playing or recording, etc. Everything was OK until we got to my MythTV box (with PVR-350 card). They could not monitor it properly, so we had to call the whole thing off. The technician (who was quite impressed with what MythTV could do) said that they might have ways to monitor such setups in the future, but he wasn't sure about it.

Re:Too slow, too late

[Shakrai]

My guess is that Nielson was missing the TVIO crowd and recorder crowd entirely. This made their product less accurate and less valuable to their customers. This cost them customers (who pay dearly for their services).

You do know that TiVo has an agreement with Nielson right? You do know that TiVo logs everything you watch and how you watch it and then gives that data to Nielson, right?

I sit on their homescan panel. I figure as somebody who boycotts Wally World and does all of his shopping at locally owned businesses it's the least I can do. I'm also being pestered to join their new TV/Radio panel -- but I haven't decided if I will or not. They have a rather interesting device that picks up audio signals from the stuff you watch/listen to and then sends that data to them in such a way that they can track what you watch/listen to. The only reason I haven't joined that panel is because I'm a bit leery about a device that listens to audio in my house and transmits it to an outside party ;)

Still, I would love to figure out exactly how it works.

Oh well..

[Presidential]

Too damn late for Farscape or Futurama...

Re:Too little, too late.

[Shakrai]

Maybe because TiVo is doing business with them? This is hardly news -- for anybody that owns a TiVo or pays attention.

Out of control

[Columcille]

The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up."

This isn't a paradigm shift, it's expansion of technology. Media entertainment is still media entertainment and people still watch it to be entertained. The ways people can access that media have expanded, but there has been no overall shift as a result.

Also, audiences aren't taking control. These extensions of media access are tickling media providers to death. Even Tivo, while cutting out advertising, reflects the audience demand for More! More! The problems Tivo presents to a media provider are only temporary. Media providers are recognizing the audience's unquenchable thirst for more! more! more! and they are finding ways to make even more money off of that thirst. It isn't victory of the audience, it's victory of the provider.

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, audiences aren't taking control.

EXACTLY.. there's only one way to "take control" of television: don't watch it. As soon as you plop down and stare, somebody else is in the driver's seat.

I'm not against TV but don't be fooled: finding MORE ways to squeeze MORE video, advertising, and $$$ spent into your life is not "control". In corporate america, TV-viewing controls YOU!

It reminds me of cell phone adverts that talk about "freedom" .. our new phone/new service/extended coverage gives you more "freedom" .. hell no, it gives you a longer, more omni-present leash!

So yeah, you're totally right.. TV companies may take a while to exploit new technologies, but don't worry, once they figure it out, they'll milk it for all it's worth, and they'll do it with the blinding efficiency we all know and love.

We shall not cease from exploitation.

[Leontes]

I was a Nielsen Television watcher for about year and a half, ending about a year ago. Instead of using my people meter while I watched television, I downloaded the shows to watch them on my computer. During this time, both Enterprise and Wonderfalls, shows I enjoyed immensely, were cancelled.

Although I drained the ratings , which would have been higher should I have actually physically watched the television, I felt it was important since I was representing those of us who had the technology to bypass television completely. I explained this to the Neilsen folks, and they weren't interested in my alternative viewing habits. Concurrently, I also downloaded and watched the first season of the apprentice, with it's integrated product placements. That exposure, from a rating point of view, possibly should have been counted, but there is no way of them measuring that. Even with this new system, they still won't count imbedded commercial watching. Microsoft, for example, paid a pretty penny to be included in the latest episode of the apprentice.

I'm glad Neilsen is finally catching up with technology. I suspect that ratings will shift pretty dramatically when DVRs are used primarily rate the shows. Commercial watching, however, will be seen as happening much less, which I suppose is appropriate since those of that can, do watch as few commercials as possible. Sadly, prefering to watch content and even being pretty unwilling to watch commercials may in the long run prevent content geared to those kinds of individuals from being created. No watching commercials = low ratings = not enough money to produce. Yet I still do everythign I can to limit down commercial watching as much as possible. I realize that may constitute copyright infringement, but I still enjoy the entertainment so much more without having to hear 'these important messages.'

Re:We shall not cease from exploitation.

[brxndxn]

You bastard!!! You got Enterprise cancelled!!!

Every dumbass knows that Nielson is just a stupid shallow representation of the idiots of the United States.. And, you, supposedly beeing a geek, should know that. You should've had your TV timer set to automatically turn the damn thing on during Enterprise and off after Enterprise.. It doesn't matter if you were watching it or not... You represented something like 1,000,000 geeks and you decided some random measurement that Neilson doesn't yet measure was more important.. Shame on you.

Why be a Nielson kiddie if you're not even going to do your TV watching or purposeful misrepresentation through the damn Nielson system? At least make it SEEM like you were a geek.. Instead, you made it seem like geeks are unmarketable through the current system (ya.. maybe so.. but who cares) and have no money to spend.. and they watch no shows. Thus, Nielson people can readily say, "Hey.. we need more stupid reality shows because smart people don't watch TV."

Ass. I hate you.

Re:We shall not cease from exploitation.

[LordNimon]

Although I think Enterprise was a bad example, I agree with the poster. If I were a Nielsen household, I would have seriously rigged it with a timer for all geek-friendly shows.

Re:We shall not cease from exploitation.

[forkazoo]

I was a Nielsen Television watcher for about year and a half, ending about a year ago. Instead of using my people meter while I watched television, I downloaded the shows to watch them on my computer. During this time, both Enterprise and Wonderfalls, shows I enjoyed immensely, were cancelled.

You can expect about a dozen brawny Wonderfalls fans to show up at your door and beat the crap out of you in about ten minutes. :) It's your fault I don't get to watch Caroline Dhavernas on TV! (Good job with Enterprise, though!)

Re:Too slow, too late

[penttan]

Still, I would love to figure out exactly how it works.

What the device sends to an outside party depends on the technology.

Some solutions require that broadcasters insert audio codes (invisible to human ear) to the transmission. The measurement device identifies these codes and the decoded channel is transmitted.

Other solutions take a "fingerprint" of the audio and try to match that to a refence recorded elsewhere. Privacy should be protected.

audiences taking control?

[Petrox]

Let's take a closer look at this breathless summary:

Nielsen will also move to measure viewing that takes place via iPods, cellular/cell phones, laptops, and other digital devices that are gaining TV privileges. The company also will track audiences for on-demand fare. The steps are a radical change for Nielsen, reflecting an overall paradigm shift that's shaking up the television world. The audience is taking control. And TV companies are scrambling to catch up.

If by "taking control" you mean "getting permission" then the only 'catching-up' going on here is in how quickly content-owners can implement acceptable (to them) access controls for the proliferation and fragmentation of potential TV-viewing media.

Crap shows - Stupid idea.

[uberdave]

Setting aside my opinion of 60 Minutes for a moment, the idea of placing a crap show after the football game is stupid. You've got all this viewership watching your station, then you shoo them away by switching to, say, a Mork and Mindy rerun that's already in progress. That's stupid. What you want to do is keep the viewership by following the game with another good show, and then another. To hell with the schedule, the only thing that matters is the number of eyes watching. Once that number drops down to normal, then you can switch back to regularly scheduled programming. (Of course, a clever broadcaster would just add in a few extra commercials here and there to bring them back to schedule).

I have nothing particular against 60 Minutes, or Mork and Mindy. I watch TV for entertainment, and I don't find politics or news entertaining. So, given the choice... Nanu-Nanu baby.

One thing I hate about Nielson is how unfair...

[ATeamMrT]

Before TiVo came out, I wondered how people got to vote for Nielson ratings? There were so many good shows I loved, but according to Nielson, nobody else did. Off Centre for example was a friday night staple a few years back. So was Class of 1993. But both of these shows were axed. If the Nielson ratings included my viewing habits, maybe these shows would still be on the air.

I wonder how marketing firms will use this new TiVo data? Will they discount the value of a show which was recorded and not watched live (because people can skip the commercials)?

And what about people who do not have TiVo, how will their votes count? I have a friend with a DVD/RW with VCR+ that lets him record like TiVo, but without the $12 a month fee. It is not connected to any phone line, and it works well. I guess he will not get a vote?

Is the anwser a system like Amazon, where everyone can leave remarks and generate buzz? TVTOME would have been the perfect website for that kind of task, but since they are gone and cnet took over, I do not trust a corporation.

I hope we get well written shows that require some IQ, not just the same lame sex jokes and reality tv.

Re:One thing I hate about Nielson is how unfair...

[mr_zorg]

I don't know how they're handling other DVRs... As for how it was done before, they would install this little box in your house and every time the light lit up you had to write down what you were watching at the time in a log book. Then they'd collect the books somehow (fedex?). From what I've heard you got a pitiful amount of compensation for your efforts. So, as you can imagine, the majority of people who would be willing do that that amount of work for next to nothing are not the kind of people who watch quality programming! :-)

Of course, if you are a Nielsen household, you're not supposed to admit it publicly lest someone try to influence your viewing habits artifically. But I figure this is anonymous enough...

Re:Nielsen

[canuck57]

When you are pissed that your favorite show was cancelled BLAME NIELSEN!

Count not agree more. Something is very wrong with the ratings they produce.

Now my wife does not like SciFi, but she actually, much to my delight and surprize will turn "Enterprise" on and watch it with me with interest. And we have a GREAT hour!

So WTF did they get in their brain by canceling it? As I suspect it had an audience beyond the spiked hair klignon freaks.

Not everyone likes watching cheap sitcoms with zero imagination and how screwed up or mundane others are... besides once you have seen one, they will rotate the scripts, change the names and show it in 3 months on a a different budget show.

Lets face it, TV sucks. If we were hald serious about real ratings we would have the cable ccompanies provide us on a per channel subscription so the 100 channels they say I get, I could reduce it to th 4-5 I actually occasional watch.

But Internet TV would be best. THis way we can bypass what they want us to watch.

Re:hey

[penguinoid]

Also, -50 points for use of the phrase 'paradigm shift.'

Perhaps we need a paradigm shift in our usage of marketspeek?

How they plan to do it

[grc]

I am amazed that no geeks have even asked HOW they plan to monitor all the iPods, PVRs and TV enabled cell phones. Does everyone out there think that Nielsen will try to strap a PeopleMeter onto all of these gadgets? Of course not! The "new" technology that they are coming out with and represents a "paradigm shift" for them is a beeper sized gizmo that PEOPLE must wear that records sound samples and compresses them along with a timestamp. These sound samples will capture an inaudible (to humans) beacon that will be inserted into all broadcasts. These samples are then synched at night though the phone and compared to a master database of the sounds emitted by EVERY TV channel and Radio station out there! This way, they will know what you where exposed to at all times, even if you where in your car listening to radio, in a bar with the TV in the background, or watching something on your PC.
I wonder how they are planning to hear my iPod though my headphones...