The 'Sniffer' creative technology for future trends in peoplemeter TV audience measurement.

Luis Antonio Silviera da Mota and Ana Lucia D'Imperio Lima ESOMAR Broadcast Audience Research, San Fran, April 1996

Title: Author(s): Source: Issue:

The 'Sniffer' creative technology for future trends in peoplemeter TV audience measurement. Luis Antonio Silviera da Mota and Ana Lucia D'Imperio Lima ESOMAR Broadcast Audience Research, San Fran, April 1996

The 'sniffer' creative technology for future trends in peoplemeter TV audience measurement.
Ana Lucia D'Imprio Lima IBOPE Media, Brazil and Luis Antonio Silveira da Mota IBOPE International, Brazil INTRODUCTION To monitor audience behavior is a task that is becoming more and more difficult in Latin America. On one side, TV sets are becoming so sophisticated that the adequate monitoring will demand much more complicated and expensive solutions that normally interfere on the usual tune-in behavior of households, eventually limiting the use of features available to the user (e.g. PIP - picture in picture). To these technical difficulties we can add the low level of household cooperation to allow the technicians to open their recently acquired brand new state-of-art sets, contributing to increase the refusal rates in joining the panel, which is worrying. On the other hand, the tuning possibilities are increasing a lot due to the diversity of the transmission systems. Today, some households can tune in the same channel of a broadcast TV station through four or more different ways: Through the TV set, through the VCR, through the tuner of the parabolic satellite disk or through the cable tuner. The solution adopted by the majority of the Research Agencies, at first, was not to include households with TV sets provided with the features described above (last generation of TV sets and diversity of tuning) in their panels, which was initially possible. There was a substantial increase in the number of households with these characteristics in the last few years, which obliges their inclusion in order not to bring in some kind of bias to the sample.
Downloaded from warc.com

However, the solutions offered by the conventional meters available on the international market are either intrusive or interfere deeply with household behavior, or both of them. In this way, even with the sample social and demographic representativeness guaranteed through the accomplishment of different control design of each panel, there are no means to contest that we are increasing the psychological bias when joining in panelists that do not bother with the intrusion on their TV sets and the changes in their tuning habits. Although this kind of bias is practically unavoidable, as the sample is always composed by households that do agree in cooperate (vs. those ones that do not agree), the research agencies have aimed to keep the refusal ranges at minimum levels to guarantee that sample representativeness will not be compromised. The 'SNIFFER' presents practical answers to a big range of problems, with the additional advantage of being compatible with almost all TV panels already installed. 'SNIFFER' - AN UPGRADE IN THE CONCEPT OF PEOPLEMETERS The Dib IV, nicknamed 'sniffer' by the Ibope development team, is an update of the conventional concept of peoplemeter, specifically referring to the monitoring of the tune-in state of the TV sets. The present generation of meters monitors the TV set tune-in state in two ways:
l

Intrusive meters: these, physically connected to the tuner of the TV sets (or others receptors used in the household with the purpose of selecting the channel to be watched) and through the reading of electrical parameters, identify the channel that is being tuned in a given moment. It offers the advantage of decreasing the interference in the household habits (decreasing the refusal), and as a disadvantage the need of installing an equipment in each one of the possible signal input entry. Non-intrusive meters: have tuners that inhibit and substitute all other tune possibilities in the household, obliging the selection to be done through it, making the register easier. It has the advantage of simplifying the monitoring and installing process and the disadvantage of producing a bigger interference in the habits of panelists and the eventual restriction in the use of the available features of the last generation TV sets (increasing the chances of refusals).

The sniffer is a non-intrusive meter. It has a probe that, positioned near the television set, reads the characteristics of the entry signal (audio and video) having as a source the signals sent out by the demodulators. The captured signal is compared to all the others available signals (positive matching) and has its origin identified. The system is simple and its operation by the household members is not more complicated than the conventional meters. It adds the advantages of equipment now available, as it is non-intrusive and takes into consideration to the big range of possibilities of tuning and does not interfere with the household habitual way of tuning in. Besides, the sniffer is potentially capable of tuning in a great number of channels and it can be totally programmed by distance, decreasing the number of household visits. Its important to stress that as the equipment is similar in concept to those that are already in use, it allows an easy
Downloaded from warc.com

replacement for the households that compound the panels already running and it is adaptable to most of the technologies usually adopted, either to collect, transmit or process information. TECHNICAL FEATURES OF THE DIB IV ('SNIFFER') The DIB IV is a non-intrusive people-meter that does the task of registering viewers in the same format as the versions available on the market: each registered person in the household has his own corresponding number and identifies himself by pushing the correspondent button on the remote control or on the meter itself (to solve the problem of a misplaced remote control). Given that this procedure is usual, let us concentrate on what makes the DIB IV different from its competitors: the tune-in identification process. The DIB IV was not built to identify the TV set 'tune in state', as this situation is no longer enough to guarantee the identification of the channel being viewed, which is the main objective of the meter. The equipment was built to determine which channel is being viewed, independent of the tune-in process. To do that, the equipment 'sniffs' what is being transmitted through the TV set and searches for the source of the transmission. The scheme outlined in Figure 1 presents the main components of the DIB IV for a better understanding of its operation. The 'heart' of the DIB IV is made up of a microprocessor that is joined to a probe or a 'sniffer' (which gives the equipment its nickname), capable of picking up audio and video signals that are being demodulated by the TV set, and to a digital tuner that can 'sweep' all the frequency bands available to the transmission of the TV signals (VHF, UHF, Cable). The microprocessor receives from the probe the characteristic information of the signal that is being demodulated by the television set and compares this information to each one of the signals available on the built in digital tuner, through a process called 'positive matching', that will be described in details later. At the moment, the comparison process of the equipment takes about 2 seconds on each channel. This allows, inside the minimum unit of time used nowadays to generate the audience information (one minute), the comparative analysis with 30 different channels. Alternatives to speed up this comparison process are being studied, as this number may become insufficient for the majority of the markets. Nevertheless, the microprocessor is programmed to make an 'intelligent' search, checking first the channel last tuned, in the previous minute, second sequence through the 5 most used channels, and, third a sequential 'sweep' of all others channels. Tests carried out demonstrate that the present concept is already adequate for the situation usually found in the household. MATCHING ALGORITHMIC The reading carried out by the probe offers to the microprocessor the characteristics of the audio and video signals that are
Downloaded from warc.com

being demodulated by the TV set and correspond to what is being broadcasted by the TV at that moment. These characteristics are compared to the information picked up by the Digital tuner resident on the DIB IV. At first, the microprocessor does a comparative analysis of synchronizing the video signal, a quick search process, that allows the reduction of the candidates to a positive identification with the original signs. This process takes 1/4 of a second per channel. Afterwards, the audio signal picked up by the demodulator is compared to each of the ones picked up by the internal Digital tuner already selected after the video search. The results are plotted through a process of linear regression, that provides the correlation coefficients between the curves and allows the selection of the one with the greater coincidence of probability, offering the positive identification. It is important to stress that it is almost impossible to have a mistake on the identification of the channel that is being broadcaster by the TV set, except in the improbable hypothesis of two channels transmitting exactly the same thing, in an absolutely synchronized way. Note that its not enough to have the same contents of transmission at the same moment. The video transmission also needs to be absolutely synchronized to cause the mistake. This group of coincidences has almost no chances of occuring. CONCLUSION The DIB 4, or 'sniffer' seems to be the best and most practical solution available to the emerging problems of the measurement of the television audiences, mainly those related to the diversity of TV signal reception. The first panels with the new concept will be installed during the year of 1996 in Brazil and will provide means for the real evaluation of its performance outside laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, considering that the equipment represents a creative solution more than a technological revolution, and based on the tests completed up to this moment, the authors feel comfortable in saying with optimism that this conceptual upgrade of the peoplemeters will be of importance for the audience measurement panels scene in the next few years.

NOTES & EXHIBITS

FIGURE 1

Downloaded from warc.com

Copyright ESOMAR 1996 ESOMAR Eurocenter 2, 11th floor, Barbara Strozzilaan 384, 1083 HN Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tel: +31 20 664 2141, Fax: +31 20 664 2922 www.warc.com All rights reserved including database rights. This electronic file is for the personal use of authorised users based at the subscribing company's office location. It may not be reproduced, posted on intranets, extranets or the internet, e-mailed, archived or shared electronically either within the purchasers organisation or externally without express written permission from Warc.

Downloaded from warc.com