Accurate audience measurement across operators’ channels provides operators
and advertisers with the information required to better manage their channel
line-up/tiering and offers deeper insight into the effectiveness of their advertising.

With the introduction of PVR devices, consumers are now watching broadcast TV on their own schedule. This shift in viewing habits is changing the way advertisers and broadcasters need to assess the effectiveness of their programs. In addition to time-shifting, consumers are now consuming content across multiple platforms and devices making the challenge of getting an accurate picture even more complex.

OpenTV’s audience measurement solution implemented in OpenTV Core™ and OpenTV PVR™ provides broadcasters, operators, and advertisers with a comprehensive event logging and reporting infrastructure to accurately analyze and act on viewers’ behavior.  

• Panel selection
  It may not be necessary or practical for operators to have all of their set-top boxes reporting measurement data; it is therefore common for operators to create panels of reporting boxes. These panels may be randomly selected or selected to ensure a defined demographic and geographic balance.
  
  
• Set-top box activation
  The set-top boxes within the audience measurement panel need to be activated and potentially configured to report the required information. Different information may be gathered from different panels of varying sizes. Set-top box activation may be done manually by the consumer or automatically by a remote configuration mechanism.
  
  
• Event types and storage
  Events are stored in non-volatile storage (usually flash memory) in the set-top box to avoid data loss when the set-top box is switched off. The OpenTV solution can capture a number of set-top box based events including: Set-top box status, audience measurement data, PVR events, and interactive application events.
  
  
• Data forwarding and collection
  The solution is based on forwarding window profiles which define how often and where data is forwarded, including the retry model used on failure. Forward windows can also randomize the delivery time within a time window to ensure that data is only forwarded at off-peak times and that the entire set-top box population does not report at the same time, thus creating scalability issues.
  
  
• Data analysis
  The solution easily exports its event logging database to other operational infrastructures such as subscriber management system or any other analysis system. The result is a clean and accurate event database that can enhance and assist an operator or advertiser to refine program strategy or ad campaigns.