A way to track individual viewers

'Ad agencies don’t need one-to-one, individualized information. They’re more interested in how many people in a given area are single, how many married, the income level, that sort of thing. Ad agencies don’t want much more than that.'

A way to track
individual viewers

It's coming. Question: Do we really need it?

By David Everitt

    Old ways of tracking viewers don’t mean quite as much as they used to.
    Keeping tabs on TV-watching habits by the household was more significant when there were only one or two sets per house and families tended to watch together.
    Now, of course, the number of sets per house has multiplied and TV-viewing has become more of an individual affair.
    Bringing the numbers down to the individual level could be a great boon to the whole idea of targeted advertising, by allowing marketers to direct specific commercials to specific viewers.
    But how exactly do you get there?
    Although we might not get there right away, a new technology has come along that might be able to deliver the goods in a few years.
    The device is being developed by Metabyte Networks as a continuation of its personalization-service technology. The company is already involved in monitoring household-viewing habits.
    "We build a household profile of what the viewers like or don’t like to watch, and our technology can filter relevant content into the home," says Vallal Jothilingam, Metabyte’s director of product management and marketing. "Our objective is to make it easier for viewers to maximize their time in front of the TV."
    The technology that brings this to the individual level--called multiple-profiling--is currently under application for a patent. When it is ready, it could be incorporated into either a PVR or a standard cable set-top box.
    How can Metabyte track viewing habits of various individuals in a home?
    Jothilingam responds that it’s a little too early to say.
    "I don’t want to disclose exactly how it works at this point for competitive reasons. I can say that it involves the use of advanced algorithms, which at different parts of the day can detect different viewing behaviors in the home."
    Although the benefits to programmers and advertisers are clear, the market, Jothilingam points out, "is not quite ready for it. I think we’re three to five years away."
    The reason, he says, has to do with the current proliferation of new technologies.
     "Just look at all that’s been happening in TV. Three years back, TV was basically what it always has been, then there was the internet on TV, then came the first personal video recorders, then digital TV and video-on-demand. We believe there is a natural progression that the medium has to go through. These other technologies have to be absorbed first, before there is a market readiness."
    He maintains, though, that the market will be ready when the time comes.
     "Right now the problem is just managing the chaos. There’s so much content on TV and so many ways of delivering it. There’s a definite need for targeting-technology, and that needs exists today. Does that translate into a demand for multiple profiling today? Not necessarily. But in a few years, yes."
    Not everyone thinks that targeting needs to be taken to such a precise level.
    Navic Networks is also in the business of gathering data on viewing habits, but the company confines its information to the demographic level, typically to the demographics of zip-code areas.
    "Ad agencies don’t need one-to-one, individualized information," says Ryan McMeniman, a Navic spokesman. "They’re more interested in how many people in a given area are single, how many married, the income level, that sort of thing. Ad agencies don’t want much more than that."
    McMeniman says there’s also another reason his company is not trying to compete with Metabyte in the field of individual monitoring. "There are all sorts of privacy concerns once you get to that level. We’re not interested in getting into that sort of business because of problems with privacy laws."
    Why isn’t the privacy issue a concern at Metabyte?
    Jothilingam insists that his company’s technology is capable of avoiding the issue. He says that the problem with other technologies is that viewer information is transmitted back and forth between the home and the cable system’s headend.
    "Our technology is very different. All the targeting information resides within the set-top. It acts as a filter to direct certain kinds of content to the viewer. No data needs to leave the home."

-David Everitt covers television and technology for Media Life, writing from Huntington, New York.

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