Nielsen Will Start Tracking Netflix and Amazon Video 55
An anonymous reader writes Nielsen is going to start studying the streaming behavior of online viewers for the first time. Netflix has never released detailed viewership data, but Nielsen says they have developed a way for its rating meters to track shows by identifying their audio. From the article: "Soon Nielsen, the standard-bearer for TV ratings, may change that. The TV ratings company revealed to the Wall Street Journal that it's planning to begin tracking viewership of online video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video in December by analyzing the audio of shows that are being streamed. The new ratings will come with a lot of caveats—they won't track mobile devices and won't take into account Netflix's large global reach—but they will provide a sense for the first time which Netflix shows are the most popular. And if the rest of the media world latches onto these new ratings as a standard, Netflix won't be able to ignore them."
What service, exactly, is Nielsen providing? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> they will provide a sense for the first time which Netflix shows are the most popular
Umm...wouldn't Netflix already have this information at its fingertips in its own logs?
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Yes, in fact, they have an API for this. Many sites use it like instantwatcher.com [slashdot.org]. Seems easier to just get an agreement written up with the streaming companies to provide the raw data.
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they don't want to pay netflix ANYTHING for the data. Nielsen wants it all for themselves.
Re:What service, exactly, is Nielsen providing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netfilx has it - the folks that want to sell shows to Netflix, the folks that have shows on Netflix and want to keep them honest, etc... etc... these are the people who are the Nielsen's customers for this data.
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Why would Netflix give them access to that data?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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...except they can't advertise to any of those people. If anything, it's perhaps a good way of measuring how far people will go to escape from the old model.
This seems like something useful for production companies that might contemplate bypassing conventionl TV entirely.
Still don't see the value in going through Neilson though. At best they could rate entire services and possibly give extra exposure to lesser services (besides the ones mentioned here).
Re:What service, exactly, is Nielsen providing? (Score:4, Interesting)
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If the amount of money that Netflix pays you depends on these numbers, how far would you trust Netflix's version of those numbers if you didn't have to?
What about SSL? (Score:1)
How will this work if Netflix encrypts the traffic?
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Listen to me while I get it on while watching movies.
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Listen to me while I get it on while watching movies.
"I don't know, it seemed like they had "The Best of Me" and Animal Planet on at the same time."
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At least that only violates one person's privacy.
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It's still encrypted when played back, so it's just white noise. Netflix installs a decryption implant as part of the subscription.
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It says that they are analyzing audio. I took that to mean that they have a microphone that will listen to what you are watching.
The nielsen ratings wikipedia article says they gather data via ether a viewer diary or a 'set meter' device attached to the TV. I'm betting they'll put microphones in the set meters (if they're not there already) to listen for audio signals like those little beeps that you sometimes hear on Pandora songs. I guess I always thought those beeps were an anti-piracy feature but they could be a privacy concern - what would stop a content provider from inserting uniquely mixed beeps of varying pitch and pattern
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If they were going to include an audio form of a watermark, they could make it so subtle as to be undetectable.
With spread spectrum watermarking, you wouldn't be able to hear it, and only someone with the original pseudonoise sequence would be able to detect it. This provides the benefit of being practically impossible for would-be pirates to detect and remove---in addition to maintaining the quality of the original recording.
If they are using audible tones as a tracking mechanism, they are, quite frankly,
The point of such a service has evolved. (Score:3)
In the TV market, they were valued because the cable/broadcast/satellite services had no idea what frequency band users were paying attention to and thus no idea what was effective and what was not without some proactive examination of the viewer base. This was important for the program producers to value product placement, integrated advertising, and for the cable/satellite people to know what content was worth/not worth licensing.
For unicast streaming, the streaming service knows *precisely* what the users are paying attention to. For content producers, they control the licensing terms so they should be able to force Hulu, Amazon, and netflix to provide data as part of the deal of licensing it, in order to have data for soliciting things like product placement.
The streaming services themselves have all the data they need to entice advertisers that are independent of the content. Additionally, the advertisements are in no way hard linked to the streaming media. If the service wants to show you that ad, they don't need to give a rat's ass about *which* program you are watching.
Certainly the people providing the service know which pieces of content they license and how much they are watched to evaluate relative value of their library.
So the two remaining purposes are to let Amazon know which parts of Netflix library are valuable enough to fight for versus not bothering, and academic curiosity of the viewership. Of course, the former might be workable by requesting the data from the content owners as part of negotiations, and the latter doesn't really mean revenue...
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I'm just hoping the data doesn't give some jackhole activist investor like Carl Icahn leverage to blackmail Netflix into selling advertisements.
Because you know, unrecognized revenue is the same thing as a loss, and Netflix has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits, or something.
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It may be that this month, NBC has the most watched show, but that's only because everybody already binge watched House of Cards last month. You're going to get completely different types of numbers.
Amazon can go F itself (Score:2)
So the two remaining purposes are to let Amazon know which parts of Netflix library are valuable enough to fight for versus not bothering [...]
So Amazon outbid Netflix for the Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. content (Dora, Peppa Pig, etc) that my kids love and then stuck it behind special monthly additional service (Freetime unlimited $5/mo without Prime and $3/mo including it). For now I can get the PBS content Netflix, and there are other options for the adventurous watchers that are great.
So this is the future, folks - yes, they'll bid for content, then essentially create another "channel" on their service.
Fractal balkanization, each layer costing
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There's another purpose too: it lets the major distribution networks see what *kind* of show people are watching. This way, when they review the pilots for the next season, they have that extra data point to take into consideration. It also means that these content producers can decide if it's worth entering a specific market segment in the streaming realm. As this is a transition period, this could be very useful information (producers can tune their contracts up front, and only rent properties that wil
Aren't they a bit late getting started? (Score:2)
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Seems like they're about five years late getting into this.
Yup. They are trying to find a way to stay relevant when they are pretty much a part of the old-school media/cable machine that's dying out in the face of online/instant streaming.
In other news... (Score:1)
Do we need Nielsen to track netflix and amazon? (Score:2)
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Nielsen Will Start Tracking Netflix and Amazon Video
What, you mean they haven't been tracking on demand and streaming video? Then, how are they at all relevant? The TV Tray Generation, who watches TV in real time and sits through the commercials, have been dying out for some time, and as a group are all but irrelevant now.
Thinking about it, this may help to explain why network suits regularly drop promising series that go on to become streaming favorites. It's not just that they don't understand their audience, but also that they're going by statistics from an organization that also no longer understands their audience.
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My limited understanding is the reason advertisers still view Nielsen ratings is for the demographics (i.e. 18-49 male, 18-49 female...). You can't get those from DVR and streaming viewing, you need a family doing the diary work. Netflix now has profiles which may eventually help, but for now the ancient creaking machine of Nielsen still determines how a company's advertising dollar is spent.
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My limited understanding is the reason advertisers still view Nielsen ratings is for the demographics (i.e. 18-49 male, 18-49 female...). You can't get those from DVR and streaming viewing, you need a family doing the diary work. Netflix now has profiles which may eventually help, but for now the ancient creaking machine of Nielsen still determines how a company's advertising dollar is spent.
I understand, but that very demographic, 18-49 male or female, are the group least likely to be watching in real time.
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Next, you will realize why cable TV shows are getting dumber and commercials more obnoxious.
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They are bean counters pandering to other bean counters. Free TV is a model for cheapskates. It's interesting that it took as long as it did for it to slide into a race to the bottom with cut-rate reality style programming.
It's hard to say how many discriminating customers there are out there and if there are enough to support the better shows. You may think that "insert favorite show here" is the bee's knees but there might not be enough audience to support it.
Although the ala carte premium channels like H
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Actually, more people watch live TV than you think. DVRs are complex, and cable/satellite provided ones are generally unreliable and horrible to use, so most people actually DON'T use it. And a surprisingly large number don't bother skippin
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I'm not sure why she lied in the diary, but it certainly cast the Nielsen ratings in a different light for me.
Available 10 years ago (Score:1)
Caveat: I used to work at Nielsen for their Online division...
This was available 10 years ago. Variations on the theme (video, campaign ads, surveys) is available there:
http://www.nielsen-online.com/login.jsp
No Thanks (Score:2)
No thanks. Opt out. Do not track. That's my purse!, I don't know you!!, etc.
Cheapest and simplest solution (Score:3)
Audio? (Score:2)
Why Amazon video? (Score:2)
I don't have the numbers to prove it but using the Amazon service to find video to watch is horrific. I can only imagine Amazon is paying them for inclusion, because otherwise the numbers cannot be worth recording...
Ratings Don't Matter... (Score:1)
TV Ratings don't matter... at least not in the way they've been sold to the public.
The notion that ratings are important because it means networks can charge more for advertising... is COMPLETELY BOGUS. Your favorite show doesn't necessarily get canceled because it's ratings are lackluster. It may get killed simply because in the era of shaping hearts & minds, your show is sending some of the wrong messages or it's not helping to cross promote other products or ideas.
Consider, the major broadcast TV n
Relevant? (Score:2)
I could be mistaking, but I'm pretty sure a streaming service already knows what people are watching. Can anyone bring those guys into the 21st century with a cluebat?