Erwin Ephron, a partner in the consulting firm of Ephron Papazian & Ephron:  

      The passive metering idea was a sick puppy to start with. We don't have the technology to do it, and the set meter [that measures household viewing] is passive anyway. 
     That's a little embarrassing for Nielsen because they've been waving the passive meter at people for a decade.  
      But why do we need a passive people meter?
      Because people don't cooperate easily. Without a passive meter, though, the only thing you don't have is viewer data, and viewer data is relatively easily modeled.  
     In a set-meter panel, you know the family size, and you know the demographics of the family, so modeling is fairly simple. It's really only for a limited primetime period that you have much viewer variation anyway.


Helen Johnston, head of research at Grey Advertising: 

    We're all somewhat resigned about Nielsen's decision. Passive metering is important, because right now we're still relying on people pushing buttons, and we know that doesn't work well. 
     We know, for instance, that people leave the room during commercial breaks. Without a passive system we don't know the audience for our commercials.  But it looks like we're not going to get passive metering from Nielsen.
    It's unfortunate that we're having to choose between getting passive metering or a system that can monitor digital viewing. Why couldn't we have both? 
     I can't believe that this giant multi-billion-dollar business can't come up with a way to measure what we need measured. We're not impoverished, and we shouldn't have to make do. 
    Modeling, which people like Erwin [Ephron] are suggesting as an alternative, is just making up data you don't want to measure. We shouldn't have to make do like that.


Alan Wurtzel, executive president of research and media development at NBC: 

    Everybody understands that the only way we're ever going to get a more accurate system of measurement of TV viewing is a passive system. No one says it's going to be easy, but so far nothing's even come out of the lab. 
   After years of research the only thing I've seen at Neilsen's lab is an image recognition system that's as big as a house. 
     It's a shame that they're giving up, though. I don't quarrel with their doing research into digital signal recognition. Its important but passive metering is important too.


David Poltrack, executive vice president for research and planning at CBS:  

     From the beginning this passive monitoring thing always seemed to me to be something that could never deal with the major issue of cooperation. You always had the problems of cost, of probable resistance by people to having these face-recognition systems in their homes, and of the fact that it was never going to be 100 percent accurate. 
    It seems to me that an awful lot of technology was going into something that kept being presented as a theoretical goal.  
     The issues should always have been how do we get bigger samples and how do we get individual commercial measurement. These are a lot more important than developing a passive meter.


Nicholas Schiavone, former head of research at NBC, and now a private consultant: 

      Nielsen had passive metering hardware and software, but only Nielsen knows what their intent was. What they had was never very robust. When they showed it to me it misidentified me as one of the Nielsen engineers!
     But even if you could resolve the technical issues, you still have issues like privacy and practicality.  
    A fundamental problem with passive metering is that if you want all TV use in a household measured, then you have to measure TV use in the bedroom, where 50 percent of families have a set. 
    Nielsen called the crucial elements of their passive system an "imaging device" and an "illuminator," but it wouldn't take someone long to realize that an imaging device is a camera and an illuminator is a light, and how many people are going to want a camera and a light in their bedroom? 
    Passive metering was an option that became an obsession. It was an effort to resolve some of the cooperation problems Nielsen was having with its people meters and diaries, but it is in no way adequate for measuring TV viewing today.
  You have had advertisers and agencies saying we need better and better measurements, but you've had broadcasters and media companies saying yeah, but who's going to pay for it?


Roger Percy, chairman of RDP Associates, who attempted in the late 1980s to develop a competing rating service that would have used a partially passive metering system based on infrared monitoring of the number of bodies in a room: 

   Technology has never really been the problem. The problem is whether the market is ready for the information and willing to pay for it.  
   We had an active/passive meter which measured the people in the room. It was very accurate. The only problem we had was that it counted dogs heavier than 70 lbs. as people, but we found that only 0.5 percent of households had dogs that large.  
    The trouble was that when we introduced our system in 1987, there was a market crash, and the media industry went through huge layoffs. Our company didn't survive that crisis. Other would-be Nielsen competitors also gave up at that time.  
   I don't think you'll see any revival of an effort to develop a passive metering system. The broadcast industry that basically pays for the ratings is satisfied with Nielsen.


Bruce Goerlich, senior vice president and worldwide media research director for MediaVest: 

     In a perfect world, I'd like to see Nielsen continue with passive-metering research, but I agree that they should focus right now on this massive onslaught of sources that don't come to the viewer by channels. 
    The priority today has to be getting ourselves ready for the shift to digitization, to TiVo, the convergence of media, and to the nature of what TV is.  


Gayle Metzger, president of SRI, which attempted to establish a competitive TV rating product earlier in the 1990s.  

   Can passive metering be done? Yes. Is it a wise thing to do?  That depends on the scale of the project.
   In today's world, with all the viewing choices available, getting an accurate report on what's being viewed is important. The individuals who are actually watching aren't all that important. The big variable is whether the set is on and what it's tuned to because the makeup of families in households isn't all that variable.  
    You have to look at the costs involved. Putting cameras in every TV room in a household is expensive, and it's not wise for your base measurement.

-Dave Lindorff covers research and television for Media Life.