A METHOD AND ENTITY FOR AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT

FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to audience measurement, and more particularly, to methods, devices, and systems to collect audience measurement data.

BACKGROUND

Audience measurements of the size and composition of program and advertisement (ad) viewing are at the heart of broadcast (i.e., linear and live) TV advertising. The audience size and viewer demographics of a TV channel during certain programs or times of the day influence the price at which advertisers are willing to buy advertising in certain spots on the program stream. Similarly, the number and type of viewers of an ad will determine what advertisers will actually pay for spots that have been broadcast. Even without considering advertisements, networks and video distributors use audience measurements to help determine content licensing costs and carriage fees. Various third parties (e.g., Nielsen Media Research in the US, BARB in the UK, BBM Canada, Mediametrie in France etc.) provide such data to advertisers, broadcasters, video content distributors and content providers.

Currently, much of the audience data gathered for broadcast TV is obtained through what is called the "panel", where a carefully selected group of households and individuals therein are chosen to statistically represent the "universe" of TV watchers in a region or country, by ensuring that the panelists best represent the overall population in terms of coverage, household size, income, ages, gender, and other demographic factors that may be of interest to broadcasters and advertisers. Panelists record their viewing through one of several ways: (1) self-recording their daily TV consumption onto a "diary" at several periods during the year; or (2) having an automated set meter, which is a small device connected to the TV, that records at frequent, periodic intervals the channel tuned to, channel changes and power off times; or (3) using "people meters" which also consist of a small device attached to the TV to record everything including channels tuned to or changed, fast forwarding, recording, etc., to which users, with a remote handheld, "log in" to the meter and record who is watching and at what time. The meter readings are returned via a telephone connection to the server side entity of the audience measurement system at periodic intervals. All three methods described above are in use, and the results from each are aggregated, "edited" and the measured timestamps compared with the broadcaster's program logs to create the ratings and demographic composition for a program.

Option (1) suffers from the forgetfulness bias, while option (2) is a gross measure that cannot tell if anyone is actually watching the program. Option (3) is now the preferred method, but, although it also suffers from panelist fatigue, the data is used quite extensively by broadcasters and advertisers, who benefit from the demographic information that it offers. However, all three options are statistical in nature and the results are only as good as the trust that the selected panel represents the "universe" of TV viewers for the region/country being sampled and the diligence of the panelists. However, despite these shortcomings, the panel based audience measurement, introduced by Nielsen, has been a staple of TV ratings since the 1950s. In what follows, we shall refer to the panel method of audience measurement as "Nielsen" as a shorthand, although there may be country-specific variations to the basic template offered by other companies.

A complementary approach to the panel is the "census" method, where data is collected passively on the viewing device (e.g., an STB, a TiVo box etc.) on the channel being watched or changed to and the information returned to the measurement system via a return path (typically a broadband IP connection). The STB tuner measurement with a given timestamp is then compared (offline) with program logs to identify the specific program being watched. This method is used by Pay TV providers (cable, satellite and IPTV operators), who have direct access to all their STB events and can enrich this return path data with valuable subscription and other 3rd party data on their subscribers to create composite profiles of their viewership. Companies such as entrak specialize in analyzing return path data and perform further probabilistic analyses of STB subscription data to try and identify the specific viewer in a household.

For households with TVs capturing over-the-air broadcasts using terrestrial antennae, where a return path is not available, a small listening device can be used to detect (inaudible) audio watermarks at periodic intervals embedded in the program or ad, or send a sample audio segment to a remote fingerprint server to identify the content being played at a particular time, This can be supplemented with a "software -based people meter", using the ubiquitous smart phone which can be loaded with a dedicated application for audience measurements that can also detect the audio watermark or send an audio sample to a remote fingerprint server. This not only measures viewing, but attributes it to a specific person. However, for the acoustic detection method, it is not clear if users wish to have such a marketing research application on their phone over concerns about privacy, the battery life of the smart phone, the background noise which can overwhelm the detector in a noisy (e.g., bars) or constrained (e.g., coat pocket) environment, or who pays for the data usage that this technique entails.

In practice, both types of measurements are often combined for a single household: a census measurement identifies the channel tuned to at a particular time, while an entry in a people meter or a smart phone application based panel identifies who is watching at that time.

While program ratings have remained the public face of broadcast TV, and provide a quick measure of a program's popularity, it is the measurement of how many people actually viewed an ad - called the "commercial rating" - that determines the actual currency of buying and selling ads and determines the fate of TV programs through their ability to continue to attract ad "dollars". Until sometime ago, the audience rating for a program close to the ad break was considered as a proxy for the number viewing the interstitial ads. That is, the program rating equated to the commercial rating.

However, with the prevalence of time-shifted viewing and ubiquity of DVR-based solutions such as TiVo and other home DVRs, and ubiquity of HTTP streaming media, advertisers want a better measure to ensure that the ads are actually watched and not fast-forwarded through during time-shifted playback. Without such a measure, advertisers are not going to accept the program rating as the commercial rating. The industry has now agreed to consider the Nielsen and other audience data gathered during a live broadcast plus up to 3 days of recorded viewing - the so-called C3 rating - to determine a program's commercial rating. Broadcasters continue to push for C7 - live + seven days of recorded viewing - to reach the audience numbers they promised advertisers, and often provide that data especially if it also helps bolsters the prices they can command when selling the program for syndication or for an international market. However, advertisers who prefer timeliness of their message prefer commercial ratings closer to the actual broadcast. C3 is the current compromise measurement accepted by all parties.

With the solution mentioned above, the sample size and composition is almost always small compared to the population size and not always representative of the population at large, with certain segments often under-represented. Those participating in self-recording households have certain biases, such as forgetting to record in diaries and then over-compensating with half-remembered data, or touching the wrong personal identification button on their household People Meter.

But perhaps the most significant concerns with the Nielsen sampling are as follows.

Niche channels (aka long tail content) suffer badly from such a methodology. Despite having a very highly focused and motivated group of viewers, such channels rate very poorly in a Nielsen commercial rating. In fact, it is this very highly targeted group of viewers that are of particular value to certain advertisers. Taking their motivation from the online world, broadcast advertisers now want to also "buy an audience" and not just "reach". However, they are not able to get the necessary audience data for such long tail content.

Nielsen fails to capture TV (and ad) viewing by large groups of people in a common setting such as bars, airport and other waiting areas, offices (e.g., an always-on CNBC channel at a financial firm) etc.

The passive method of measuring events (such as channel tuned to, changed to, power off etc.) via a set meter attached to the TV/STB does not suffer from the above-mentioned panel bias. However, such meters are expensive, and TVs in public places do not have these. Thus, a significant number of viewers are under-counted. Also, the viewer (if indeed there is an attentive one) is inactive / passive and, unlike the people meter, cannot be attributed to a demographic.

Acoustic methods have the following issues.

Audio watermarks are not detectable if the viewer is using headphones or watching with the sound turned off, or in public places (e.g., airport waiting areas) where the audio is turned off and closed captioning substituted.

Audio watermark detection can be difficult in noisy environments such as public places (e.g., bars), where multiple TVs are tuned to different programs, or if a smart phone with a watermark detecting application is in the viewer's pocket.

Audio watermarks are currently proprietary and tie the broadcasters/content owners to single vendor solutions, with corresponding proprietary apps for detection. There is a recent move to create standardized watermarks by both the ATSC and SMPTE, but these are specifications that are some years away from completion and subsequent deployment.

Smart TVs from most major manufacturers have, by now, embedded video fingerprinting technology, where the TV manufacturer works with a 3rd party to convert viewing events into content (program or ad) information. After comparison with broadcaster program logs, these can then be converted into audience measurements. However, user backlash over privacy concerns ("Is your TV watching you?") have caused alert users to turn off such detection capabilities.

One obvious conclusion from the above is that there are several fragmented ways of audience measurement, and a broadcaster/content owner has to work with an independent and accredited entity, who, in turn, works with multiple parties to collect and combine such data to obtain meaningful and un-duplicated audience measurements. Some techniques are used to increase the scale of the measurements, while others identify viewer demographics.

SUMMARY According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented audience measurement method in a terminal is provided. The audience measurement method comprises: receiving media content data and outputting media content for presentation to a user; obtaining instruction data inserted in the media content data, the instruction data indicating a location from which to fetch code of an audience tracking application for tracking audience of the media content; sending a request to the location for the code of the audience tracking application; in response to receiving the code of the audience tracking application, executing the code, wherein executing the code causes at least a report to be sent to a server in response to event occurring being obtained.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented audience measurement method in a server side is provided. The audience measurement method in a server side comprises: receiving reports of audience measurement from terminals; and analyzing the reports to provide statistical and analytical data. According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a server side entity for audience measurement is provided. The server side entity for audience measurement is connected to playback devices over a network. The server side entity comprises: a storage, adapted to store data and instructions therein; a processing system, adapted to perform the processes described in the embodiments; a network interface, adapted to communicate data with the playback devices; and a communication medium, adapted to facilitate communication among the storage, the processing system, and the network interface.

As a whole or by scenario, the present disclosure offers a way to mitigate some of the deficiencies of the methods described above by offering a passive measurement technique using the download of application software that does not require user involvement or additional equipment in the user's premises, and is based on use of deployed TV technologies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The method and entity for audience measurement may best be understood by referring to the following description and accompanying drawings that are used to illustrate embodiments of the present disclosure. In the drawings:

Fig. 1 shows an environment in which embodiments of the present disclosure is applied.

Fig. 2 is a flow diagram of a process for audience measurement performed in a terminal, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 3 is a flow diagram of an audience tracking application, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of a process for audience measurement performed in a server side, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. Fig. 5 illustrates exemplary occasions to report to server side entity of the audience measurement system, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 6 illustratively shows a block diagram of example physical components of a server-side entity of audience measurement system in accordance to one embodiment of the disclosure.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

The following description describes methods and entities for providing audience measurement. The methods and entities of terminal side may be integrated into or coupled to a media content playback device. In the following description, numerous specific details such as logic implementations, opcodes, means to specify operands, resource partitioning/sharing/duplication implementations, types and interrelationships of system components, and logic partitioning/integration choices are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It will be appreciated, however, by one skilled in the art that the method and entity for audience measurement described herein may be practiced without such specific details. In other instances, control structures, and full software instruction sequences have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure the disclosure. Those of ordinary skill in the art, with the included descriptions, will be able to implement appropriate functionality without undue experimentation.

References in the specification to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," "an example embodiment," etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

A block with solid borders is not essential in certain embodiments, it is optional in certain embodiments, but not the only option or optional operation.

In the following description and claims, the terms "coupled" and "connected," along with their derivatives, may be used. It should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. "Coupled" is used to indicate that two or more elements, which may or may not be in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, co-operate or interact with each other. "Connected" is used to indicate the establishment of communication between two or more elements that are coupled with each other.

An electronic device stores and transmits (internally and/or with other electronic devices over a network) code (which is composed of software instructions and which is sometimes referred to as computer program code or a computer program) and/or data using machine -readable media (also called computer-readable media), such as machine -readable storage mediums (e.g., magnetic disks, optical disks, read only memory (ROM), flash memory devices, phase change memory) and machine -readable transmission media (also called a carrier) (e.g., electrical, optical, radio, acoustical or other form of propagated signals - such as carrier waves, infrared signals). Thus, an electronic device (e.g., a computer) includes hardware and software, such as a set of one or more processors coupled to one or more machine-readable storage mediums to store code for execution on the set of processors and/or to store data. For instance, an electronic device may include non-volatile memory containing the code since the non-volatile memory can persist code/data even when the electronic device is turned off (when power is removed), and while the electronic device is turned on that part of the code that is to be executed by the processor(s) of that electronic device is typically copied from the slower non-volatile memory into volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM)) of that electronic device. Typical electronic devices also include a set or one or more physical network interface(s) to establish network connections (to transmit and/or receive code and/or data using propagating signals) with other electronic devices. One or more parts of an embodiment described herein may be implemented using different combinations of software, firmware, and/or hardware. The playback device, the server side entity and the server, etc. described herein each is a kind of electronic device.

Embodiments overcome the disadvantages of existing techniques by making use of automatic application loading to support audience measurement data collecting. Various other embodiments are described and claimed herein.

Fig. 1 shows an environment in which embodiments of the present disclosure is applied.

In the example of Fig. 1 , a media system 100 includes a media service distributor 102 and a playback device 104. The playback device 104 is monitored using an audience measurement system 106 having a terminal side entity (not shown), a server side entity 108 and a network 1 10 in between. The playback device 104 is positioned in a viewing or media consumption area, although the media consumption area are shown to be located within a house, it will be appreciated that such a limitation is not necessary, as according to some standards in the art there is no physical requirements on the terminals - the playback device 104. Any public place, such as a restaurant, a shopping mall, a plaza, an airport waiting place, a cinema, is also applicable. However, some behavioral aspects and analysis, outside the scope of this disclosure would be needed to estimate audience size in a public location and their attentiveness. The media consumption area is occupied by one or more people, referred to as audience members 1 12, all of whom have no idea of the audience measurement system. The playback device 104 can be a smart TV, a set-up box (STB), a notepad, a desktop, a laptop, a smart phone, a radio set, or any other devices that support audio and/or video playback of media content, and can support standards with automatic application loading functionality.

The media service distributor 102 of the illustrated embodiment is implemented using any media service distributor 102 such as, but not limited to, a cable media service distributor 1 14, an Internet media service distributor 1 16, a radio frequency ( F) media distributor 1 18, and/or a satellite media service distributor 120. The playback device 104 receives a plurality of signals transmitted via a plurality of channels by the media service distributor 102, displays or enables to display signals provided in any format such as, for example, an National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) television signal format, a high definition television (HDTV) signal format, an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) television signal format, a phase alternation line (PAL) television signal format, a digital video broadcasting (DVB) television signal format, an Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB), Hybrid Broadcast/Broadband TV (HbbTV), an Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) television signal format, etc. The processing performed by the playback device 104 includes, for example, extracting a video component delivered via the received signal and/or an audio component delivered via the received signal, causing the video component to be displayed on a screen/display associated with the playback device 104, and/or causing the audio component to be emitted by speakers associated with the playback device 104, and parsing the media content data to extract instruction data for code fetching and executing the code. The media content contained in the media signal includes, for example, a television program, a movie, an advertisement, a video game, a radio program, and/or a preview of other programming that is or will be offered by the media service distributor 102.

The terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 herein is a prior art module inside the playback device 104. It is not necessarily a hardware device. It could be a software module running in the playback device, or say, software in combination with hardware, depending on technical design of the playback device manufacturer, and such design is beyond our disclosure. It could be integrated into, or coupled to the playback device 104. According to most popular standards, such as DVB, ATSC and HbbTV, the playback devices can support functionality of the terminal side entity. Therefore, our application based solution requires no additional equipment at the terminal side - the playback device. It becomes purely an operational matter to make use of such a solution, without the need for any external or additional equipment.

The terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 is widely provided for the playback device 104 disposed in the house, such that the terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 captures data regarding all media content viewing or consumption by the audience members 1 12. The terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 of the illustrated embodiment communicates with a remotely located server side entity 108 via a network 1 10. The network 1 10 is implemented using any type of public or private network such as, but not limited to, the Internet, a telephone network, a local area network (LAN), a cable network, and/or a wireless network. To enable communication via the network 1 10, the playback device 104 should include a communication interface that enables a connection to any wired network such as an Ethernet, a digital subscriber line (DSL), a telephone network, a cable network, or any wireless connection, etc.

The terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 enables audience tracking application to be downloaded automatically and run once media content is being played by the playback device 104 with an indication that such an application is available, and the execution of the audience tracking application in turn enables reports to be sent to the server side entity 108 from the playback device 104.

The server side entity 108 includes at least a server and a storage, either internal or external to the server. The server side entity 108 processes and stores code of audience tracking applications and data received from the terminal side entity.

The example server side entity 108 of FIG. 1 combines reports from multiple playback devices 104 to compile statistical and analytical viewing data. The server side entity 108 can generates reports for advertisers and/or program producers based on the compiled statistical and analytical viewing data.

In the example of FIG. 1 , according to most standards that support automatic application loading, the audience members 1 16 have no idea of the audience measurement system 106 and can enjoy their media content without noticing being monitored. The audience tracking application is invisible and inaudible, i.e., it causes no visual artifacts to appear on the user's screen and no audio artifacts broadcast from the user's speaker. Also, the audience tracking application can coexist with any other application that may be broadcast along with current media content. The audience tracking application can be easily subjected to review and periodic audits by an independent party (not shown) to ensure that its actions do not go beyond the described purpose of audience measurement. Our solution allows the audience measurement reports to be directed at multiple parties, one of whom can be an auditor.

Descriptions with reference to Figs. 2-4 are given below to show a general view of the present disclosure, while descriptions with reference to Figs. 5 are given thereafter to show some detailed implementations.

Fig. 2 is a flow diagram of a process for audience measurement performed in a terminal, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the terminal is a STB or a smart TV, connected to a display device which might be a dumb TV or a monitor. Such a display device is also referred to as a presentation device. In a live play scenario, the playback device, such as a smart TV or a STB (connected to a regular/legacy TV via HDMI, but possibly not to a broadband network), is one that has a broadband connection. In one embodiment, the process is initiated when the playback device 104 or the terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 receives media content data and outputs media content for presentation to a user (block 202). The media content data can be received from any of existing media service distributor 102 shown in Fig. 1 , or from a recording electrical device. Then the playback device 104 or the terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 obtains instruction data, inserted in the media content data (block 204). The instruction data indicates a location from which to fetch code of an audience tracking application for tracking audience of the media content.

The playback device 104 or the terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 sends a request to the location for the code of the audience tracking application (block 206). In response to receiving the code of the audience tracking application from the location, the playback device 104 or the terminal side entity of the audience measurement system 106 executes the code (block 208), wherein the executing causes at least a report to be sent to the server side entity 108 in response to an event occurrence. In one embodiment, the instruction data indicates the audience tracking application should be executed immediately and automatically once received. In one embodiment, the audience tracking application will be executed immediately and automatically once received, independent of any indicated in the instruction data. In one embodiment, the location for the code of the audience tracking application is just in the server side entity 108, while in one embodiment, the location for the code of the audience tracking application is separate from the server side entity 108. In either case, the location of the server to which reports are sent can be included in the code.

Fig. 3 is a flow diagram of an audience tracking application, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, the operations of the flow diagram are performed by the audience tracking application which is mentioned above with reference to Fig. 2. In one embodiment, the audience tracking application may run in the playback device 104. Once launched, the audience tracking application sends a start-playing report to the server side entity (block 308), as the launching of the audience tracking application indicates that media content has started to play. The start-playing report comprises an identity of a service carrying the media content, for example, channel name such as BBC radio 5, an identity of the media content, for example, program name such as "SPACE RACE", an identity of a distributor of the service, for example, a local satellite TV provider such as Sky UK Limited, and start-playing time of the media content. The start-playing time can be in the form of clock time, or any others, such as timestamp. If the identity of the provider of the service, such as BBC, is already covered by the identity of the service, such as BBC radio 5, thus it is not necessary to include it in the start-playing report.

The audience tracking application may report some or all of naturally occurring data, such as volume up or volume down, mute or un-mute, screen or displayer powered off or on, trick play, etc. as long as it can obtain the data. In one embodiment, those events occur in response to key presses, and these key presses may be intercepted by the audience tracking application. Once the audience tracking application obtains a key press, it will send a key-press report to the server side entity 108 (block 312) for storage and further analysis. In one embodiment, the key-press report comprises: an identity of service carrying the media content, an identity of the media content, identity of distributor of the service, type of key presses, and key-press time.

It will be appreciated that some output activation and deactivation may be possible without a key press; for instance, if the TV is powered off by the user, the STB may realize this from the lack of an input signal from the TV or a specific input (such as an HDMI signal) from the TV.

In one embodiment, if the media content is not an advertisement, the intercepted key presses will be passed to audio and/or video outputs associated with the playback device 104 to act accordingly (block 314). If the media content is an advertisement, some of the intercepted key presses, such as mute, volume down, and screen or displayer deactivation as set in the audience tracking application, may not be passed to audio and/or video outputs associated with the playback device 104, to keep the advertisement effective (block 316).

In one embodiment, the instruction data indicates a different location for fetching different code for a different audience tracking application for different media content. That is to say, the instruction data inserted in different media content is different and will initiate a new round of requesting for code and executing (blocks 206 and 208). Therefore, any media content changing, such as an advertisement being inserted or channel switching will cause obtaining of instruction data indicating a different location for fetching different code for a different audience tracking application for the different media content. In one embodiment, once the new round starts, the previous audience tracking application should be closed, as required by the terminal side entity that only one audience tracking application is allowed to be executed. When the audience tracking application is to be closed, it will send a close report to the server side entity 108 (block 310). In one embodiment, the close report comprises an identity of service carrying the media content, for example, channel name such as BBC radio 5, an identity of the media content, for example, program name such as "SPACE RACE" an identity of distributor of the service, for example, a local satellite TV provider such as Sky UK Limited, and end-playing time of the media content together with a notification that the audience tracking application is being closed. The end-playing time can be in the form of clock time, or any others, such as timestamp. The server side can transform and align the time format for calculation.

In one embodiment, before, any report is sent to the server side entity, the audience tracking application determines status of audio and/or video outputs associated with the playback device 104 for presentation of media content, such as whether they are activated or deactivated (304). Once determined, the status of the audio and/or video outputs will be added to the reports described above for sending to the server side entity (306) for storage and further analysis.

Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of a process for audience measurement performed in a server side, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, the operations of the flow diagram are performed by the server side entity 108 of the audience measurement system 106. The server side entity 108 of the audience measurement system 106 may receive and analyze reports from all targeted playback devices. In one embodiment, the targeted playback devices can be determined by the media service distributor 102. For example, the media service distributor 102 distributes media content in formats such as DVB, ATSC or HbbTV, which standards involve automatic application loading. The media service distributor 102 may insert the instruction data indicating location for code of audience tracking applications in the media content data and then distribute it to part or all of its consumers - the targeted playback devices.

In one embodiment, the process is initiated when a request for code of an audience tracking application is received from one of the targeted playback devices (block 402).

In one embodiment, the server side entity 108 determines whether the time at which the request is received is later than the time at which the media content was scheduled to be distributed by a threshold period (block 404). This is required particularly for those recorded media content, or any buffered playback, such as rewind, for live broadcast. In case that the time at which the request is received is later than the time at which the media content was scheduled to be distributed by a threshold period, the server side entity 108 sends a response to the requested playback device 104 that no audience tracking application is available or needed (block 406). This is generally set when such media content is out of date, or audience tracking for such media content becomes meaningless after a long period. For example where a C3 rating is required and the media content is being watched more than 3 days after the scheduled broadcast time, then the viewing of the media content will not count towards the C3 rating. In one embodiment, the scheduled time was included in the request and the threshold period is set in the server side entity 108. If the time at which the request is received is not later than the time at which the media content was scheduled to be distributed by a threshold period, the server side entity 108 sends the requested code of the audience tracking application to the playback device 104 (block 408).

Processes described above repeat for each of the targeted playback device as appropriate.

During execution of the code, audience measurement data will be gathered and reported, and the server side entity will receive reports from the target playback devices (block 410). The reports comprise start-playing reports, close-playing reports and key-press reports as described above with reference to Fig. 3. The server side entity can then analyze the reports, for example, on a regular basis, or as required by an administrator to provide statistical and analytical data to the data consumers such as advertisers and/or program producers. The statistical and analytical data comprises: estimated (due to uncertainty of audience size in a public location and their attentiveness) quantity of audiences of respective media content, average length of watching/listening time of respective media content.

Fig. 5 illustrates exemplary occasions to report to server side entity of the audience measurement system, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. The occasions involve a plurality of scenarios, and we will describe the occasions by scenarios. For sake of simplicity, the playback device is default to support DVB standard, while embodiments below is well applicable to any other playback devices that support automatic application loading.

Natural play

Figure 5 illustrates the playback device tuning to a broadcast program

(Program 1 part 1 of Channel A) and observing the AIT (Application Information Table, for more information of AIT, one may refer to, for example, ETSI TS 102 809 vl .2.1) associated with it. The transport stream carrying the program is configured to transmit the AIT information at a relatively high frequency (typically every 2-4 seconds) such that the audience tracking application described in the AIT can be started almost as soon as the broadcast program is tuned to. In the figure, the AIT for the audience tracking application is indicated by arrows and delivered every few seconds to ensure that the playback device reacts to the presence of the application shortly after joining the program.

After a period, the program changes to an interstitial advertisement. The advertisement has its own audience tracking application signaled by a different AIT. It is noted that the AIT described herein can't be seen or heard by the audience, it is non-visual and/or non-auditory.

Then the playback device receives an AIT associated with the first advertisement (Ad 1). This AIT is also repeated at a high frequency and describes a different application from that of Program 1.

It is noted that frequencies of AIT of different programs or advertisements could be the same or not. It depends on the media service distributor's configuration.

Then the program transitions to a pod of advertisements (Ad 2 and Ad 3), and then back again to the program (program 1 part 2), and so on.

When a terminal starts receiving a broadcast program, it obtains an AIT inserted by the broadcaster or MVPD, which indicates the location of the audience tracking application to be loaded. The AIT includes a control code attribute that is set to AUTOSTART, which indicates that the application should be started immediately upon reception. The playback device sends a request to the location (which could be a web server within the server of server side entity) indicated in the AIT, and receives back application code for the playback device to execute. The execution of this application code causes relevant audience tracking data including the timestamp, the channel tuned to, the specific program being watched, and the distributor through which this channel is being transmitted to be sent to the server side entity of the audience measurement system. Location of the server to which audience measurement report is sent can be comprised in the code for subsequent addressing.

Each measurement parameter is available to the audience tracking application via APIs exposed in the playback device, such as a smart TV, as follows:

current playout timestamp is available through regular language APIs (such as the JavaScript Date() class) for normal playback operation (or from the playPosition property of the OIPF defined video/broadcast object when trickplay is in use or the program is being played out from a recording or time shift buffer);

the channel tuned to is available through components of the currentChannel property in the OIPF defined video/broadcast object;

information about the program airing on the channel is available via the programmes property of the OIPF defined video/broadcast object;

the distributor information is retrieved from the URL which launched the application (provided in the window. location.href property by the browser environment).

This data is reported in a start-playing report sent to the audience server side entity of the audience measurement system via a HTTP GET sent to the following parameterized URL:

measurement-service. mvpd.com/trackingApp?startTime=tt&channel=CC &program=PP &distributor=DD.

Another possibility would be to use a RESTful URL to report the same parameters.

There will always be a small difference (100-200 ms) between detecting the AIT and executing the audience tracking application. However, this will not necessarily affect the accuracy of start-playing time.

The audience tracking application runs in their own instances of an execution framework while the playback device platform manages access to system functionality through APIs. The execution of the audience tracking application is analogous to that of service program in a Windows platform for a daemon in a Unix environment. However, there can be a rule that only one application with the AIT application descriptor = tracking application can exist at any given time. Once the playback device has responded to the AIT, the playback device ignores any other AIT that is the same as one it has previously reacted to. Thus, this audience tracking application persists until the next program or advertisement starts or the user changes the channel, whereupon the new audience tracking application corresponding to the new content is detected and launched.

On reception of a different non-visual and non-auditory AIT corresponding to Ad 1 , the previous tracking application is closed and the Ad 1 audience tracking application is launched, reporting back information relevant to its environment - the channel to which it is attached, the program within which it is embedded, the distributor through which the program is being carried and the timestamp.

The termination process of the previous tracking application (indeed any application) includes a signal to the audience tracking application that it is about to be terminated and that it should take any final steps it needs to perform. The audience tracking application can then provide a close report. The time it received the termination signal is comprised in the close report for the server side entity to calculate the duration the playback device was active for (determined by the time it received the termination signal minus the time saved from the start-playing report). The close playing report is sent to the server side entity via a HTTP GET addressing to the following parameterized URL:

measurement-service. mvpd.com/trackingApp?endTime=TT&channel=CC &Ad-id=AA&distributor=DD.

When the playback device 104 starts receiving the next advertisement (Ad 2) and the AIT associated with it, it commences the termination process of the tracking application associated with Ad 1. AIT associated with different programs or ads contains different data, principally the filename of the audience tracking application described by the AIT. The audience tracking application associated with Ad 1 can then provide a close report. Note that it may not be necessary for the playback device to save the ending clock time and report the duration as subsequent analysis of the timestamps of the reports received by the server side entity of the audience measurement system can produce similar results.

The start-playing reports have already been described with reference to Fig. 3 and further described herein with reference to Fig. 5, and are sent right after different AIT receiving time tl , t2, t3, t4, t6, t8 etc. respectively. The close report have already been described with reference to Fig. 3 and further described herein with reference to Fig. 5, and are sent right after different AIT receiving time t2, t3, t4, t6, t8, etc. respectively. Right after any of time t2, t3, t4, t6, t8, etc, actually two reports are sent, with a close report from previous audience tracking application firstly and a start report from new audience tracking application secondly, although only one dotted arrow is shown for visual clarity.

Channel switch

As is shown in Fig. 5, the user changes channels (from A to B) at t9. When the channel currently being shown on the playback device changes, the AITs sent with the new channel will be detected. This is the trigger that causes the running audience tracking application associated with th previous channel to be terminated following the same procedure as that used when a channel transitions from one piece of programming to another within the same channel such as that described above for the transition from Ad 1 to Ad 2, i.e. the playback device commences the termination process of the application associated with the current program or advertisement, which includes a signal to the application that it is about to be terminated and that it should take any final steps it needs to perform. This step includes a close report to the server side entity of the audience measurement system. No further reports for programs or advertisements on channel A are made thereafter.

As shown in Figure 5, the reporting of the new program (Program 7) being viewed follows the same approach as described above in section "Natural play". Similarity goes to start-playing reports at tl 1 and tl2. It is possible that a channel change from channel A to B may occur during the playout of an ad. The actions are also the same. The audience tracking application for the ad is terminated and a close report is sent. Since the channel change away from the advertisement occurs before the normal end time of the advertisement, the reported duration will be less than the expected advertisement running time. It is up to the server side entity of the audience measurement system to determine if this is a valid ad impression.

The start-playing reports have already been described with reference to Fig. 3 and further described herein with reference to Fig. 5, and are sent right after different AIT receiving time tl O after switching to Channel B at t9. The close reports have already been described with reference to Fig. 3 and further described herein with reference to Fig. 5, and are sent right after different AIT receiving time tlO. Similarly, right after time tlO, ti l and tl2, actually two reports are sent, with a close report from previous audience tracking application firstly and a start report from new audience tracking application secondly, although only one dotted arrow is shown for visual clarity.

The embodiments in this disclosure measures all channels to which a TV or STB is tuned at any time, allowing such niche channels to regain advertiser attention, although in a coarse-grained way as the specific user cannot always be identified.

Trick play

(T) Trick play during program playback

Some playback devices may permit trick play of the broadcast program being received. This depends on whether the playback device offers buffering in local memory. Trick play includes pausing of the program presentation (for example when the viewer temporarily steps away) and later resumes, and also might include advanced features such as "rewinding" of the program such that a scene can be viewed again and skipping forward to catch up with the program as it is being broadcast. These trick play operations require the playback device to save the program information (audio, video and also AIT) in a buffer.

In one embodiment, the playback device supports trick play functions, the audience tracking application associated with the program may be able to request that it intercept key presses entered by the user. In the HbbTV/OIPF specifications this is accomplished by an API call to Keyset. setValue(Keyset. VCR), followed by the subsequent registration of a key press handling function inside the application. These can then form the basis for additional audience measurement reports - key press reports sent from the playback device. These key press reports, for pausing cases, can include data such as new playback time or the duration spent in a paused state. As before, the reports are sent via a HTTP GET using a parameterized URL as shown in earlier examples.

Note that the playback device does not retain any state but faithfully reports the user's key presses for various actions and it is up to the server side entity of the audience measurement system to analyze these reports and determine how much of the program/ad was watched.

Once the key press report has been made, the indication of the key press is passed to the content playback function (a.k.a. media player) to perform the actual operation on the received program.

Special consideration is needed if trick mode is started within one programming item (program segment or advertisement) and involves a "rewind" to another program item with a different AIT. This situation is dealt with through the same procedures as those described in the natural play from one program segment to another, i.e., once a different AIT is received, the audience tracking application running for the programming item when the trick mode is started gets terminated and reports data such as the time this occurred, then the audience tracking application signaled for the other program item is started and reports as described above in section "Natural play". As before, the server side entity of the audience measurement system analyses the reports to determine how much of a program was watched. (ii) Trick play in an advertisement

Audience measurement reporting of trick play during an advertisement follows the same technique as that described in section "(i) Trick play during program playback" for program playback.

In one embodiment, the audience tracking application for the advertisement intercepts the key presses, reports them in a key press report (such as a key-press report indicating "pause" at t5 in Fig. 5) as an attempt to perform trick play for the server side entity of audience measurement system to judge, and does not pass them to the media player for action. In this case, trick play functionality would be disabled during an advertisement.

Recordings playback

Audience measurement can also be performed on programming that has been recorded. This recording occurs inside a receiving terminal based on a schedule which is typically established by a user and involves saving the programming on a storage medium. The audience measurement reporting of recorded programming may occur when the program playback by a playback device from the storage medium occurs. If the recorded programming is deleted without being played back then no audience measurement is reported. The receiving terminal is not necessarily the playback device.

In one embodiment, in order for audience measurement reporting of recorded programming to occur, the program is broadcast with an additional AIT entry that uses a control code of PLAYBACK AUTOSTART. This is needed when two tracking applications are signaled when the program is transmitted - the first [AUTOSTART] is used in real-time/time shifted (natural play) scenarios (the time-shift buffer is typically less that 1 hour) and the second [PLAYBACK AUTOSTART] is used when the playback is from a local recording - i.e. something I recorded last week. Consideration should be given to ensure that the audience measurement server used to report playback of recorded programming is still available for a reasonable period of time after the initial broadcast time of the program. If not, then the audience tracking application associated with AUTOSTART can be used. If the audience tracking application associated with AUTOSTART is still unavailable, then no measurements will be made.

(T) Normal playback of recorded programming

Audience measurement reporting against programming that has been recorded occurs when the recorded programming is played back. The recording operation will store the AIT information along with the programs audio, video and other information and invoke any AIT with a control code of PLAYBACK AUTO START when playback starts. This will refer to an audience tracking application in the same manner as that described in section "Natural play" above.

(ii) Fast-forwarding of recorded ads

Since the entire programming interval is recorded it is possible to extend the trick play operation to "skip forward" from the current playback position. Viewers often make use of this capability to "skip over" breaks in the program which contain advertisements. If the first few seconds of the advertisement are shown, the playback device will act on the PLAYBACK AUTOSTART AIT which starts the audience tracking application for the advertisement in the same manner as described in section "(ii) Trick play in an advertisement" above.

The skip forward operation (where the user can jump in specific time intervals) is likely to ignore any PLAYBACK AUTO START AIT during the skipped period. When normal playback resumes, a new AIT for the program may be present causing the advertisement tracking application to the terminated.

If the viewer anticipates that advertising break is upcoming, the skip forward or fast forward operation may be initiated before any part of the recorded advertisement is played back, so the audience tracking application of the skipped ad will not be launched and no audience measurement reporting for the advertisement will be performed. Normally the viewer will terminate the skip forward when the main program resumes, resulting in audience measurement reporting that would appear in the same way as normal playback of the recorded program.

Status (on/off) reporting

In one embodiment, status of the playback device, such as playback device power off or power on, screen/display or loudspeaker power off or power on, can be reported additionally in the reports described above sent to the server side entity of audience measurement system for further analysis.

Playback devices that receive broadcast programming generally comprises two popular categories, those that include an integrated display screen are referred to television sets and those that connect to a display screen via some form of cable are referred to as Set Top Boxes (STBs). Note that this is a historic term, as it is unlikely that the current physical dimensions of a STB or the display screen would permit the former to sit atop the latter. Note we are not limiting the playback devices to the two categories.

Due to the tight integration provided by a television set, the internal operations "know" when the playback device is set into a standby state in which the visual and audible outputs (screen and speakers) are off. In this state, the broadcast program and advertisements may still be received in order to perform some built-in recording function (i.e. PVR) at a pre-arranged time. The television set will ignore any received AIT while it is in this standby state as all other processing functions are inactive.

Set top boxes permit different forms of interconnection with the display screen. In the most advanced form, using the later versions of HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) the STB can periodically determine the power state of the display screen. If the screen is powered off then there will be no reply to the STB's query but if the screen is powered into a standby state then the reply will suitably represent that. Either way, when the STB determines that the display screen is powered off or in standby, it should ignore any program or application AIT that it receives. Other forms of cable interconnection between the STB and display- screen do not provide any advanced interrogation techniques, so the STB should continue to respond to the program and advertisement AITs as described above. The STB could include some other mechanisms to determine if active viewers remain, examples of which include the time since a button (i.e. volume up/down/mute) is pressed on the remote control or some active motion or audio monitoring of the environment. These mechanisms are not considered reliable and audience measurements from such devices should not be treated as highly as those from the advanced form.

For example, the STB will include in its report (such as start-playing report) to the audience server side entity of the audience measurement system the state of the TV to which it is connected using an additional parameter, as follows:

measurement-service. mvpd.com/trackingApp?startTime=tt&channel=

CC&program=PP &distributor=DD &powerStatus=on,

with the powerStatus taking the values on or unkown. Other parameters may be designed to indicate status of screen/display or loudspeaker. One example is a key-press report indicating speakers off at t7 in Fig. 5.

The server side entity of the audience measurement system can use these reports to determine usage (what was watched) and census (how many watched).

The embodiments in this disclosure have the source of the media content introduce the program or advertisement (ad) application associated with the program or ad at the time of ingestion, and it can identify the exact source/distributor of the content. Thus, no time-consuming and error prone, not to say people-intensive, comparison with logs is needed.

The application based embodiments provided in the disclosure can determine the playback device, i.e., a Smart TV, a STB with a TV attached, a TV with a terrestrial antenna, etc. This can help determine how the data should be interpreted. Some STBs can detect if the TV attached is on/off, while others cannot. Thus, in the latter case, a measurement that a channel tuned to past midnight and not changed for several hours may be interpreted as "TV off/no one watching". The disclosure takes no position on such behavioral interpretations on the measurement; it simply offers all the data needed to arrive at an interpretation.

Other termination scenarios

If the user powers off the STB, all software processes (including that for the audience tracking application) will be killed, hopefully gracefully. It could send a close report. But the network interface should not be shut down before the application being killed. Otherwise, the server side entity will have to take a decision on such cases, where it receives a start report but no end report. That's the part where some back end analysis is needed: can this be considered a valid view of the program, or should this reading be discarded?

If scheduled programming finishes at some time (it's not often that channels go completely off air) then (a) there could be a AIT stream associated with the blank screen/image or (b) the playback device could notice that no AIT has been received for some time and kill the application or (c) the terminal could detect that no service is currently being broadcast (i.e., analog white noise) and terminate the application.

Figure 6 illustratively shows a block diagram of example physical components of a server-side entity 600 of audience measurement system in accordance to one embodiment of the disclosure. It should be appreciated that the server-side entity 600 can be implemented using components other than those illustrated in the example of Figure 6. The server-side entity 600 generally could be a server, or a software functionality implemented in any network element, etc.

In the example of FIG. 6, the server-side entity 600 comprises a storage 601 , a processing system 602, a network interface 603, and a communication medium 604.

The storage 601 includes one or more than one computer-usable or computer-readable storage medium capable of storing data and/or computer-executable instructions. It should be appreciated that the storage medium is preferably a non-transitory storage medium. The storage 601 stores various types of data and/or software instructions. For instance, in the example of Figure 6, the instructions in the storage 601 can include those that when executed in the processing system, cause the network device 600 to implement the methods described herein with reference to Figure 4. In some embodiments, several separate storage mediums are used for storing code for implement the methods described herein with reference to Fig. 4, code for audience tracking applications as described with reference to Fig. 3 and report data respectively. Examples of such storage 601 include hard drive disks, compact disk drives, Blu-ray disk drives, RAID systems, and digital versatile disk (DVD) drives, etc.

The processing system 602 includes one or more than one processing unit. A processing unit is a physical device or article of manufacture comprising one or more integrated circuits that read data and instructions from computer readable media, such as the storage 601 , and selectively execute the instructions. In various embodiments, the processing system 602 is implemented in various ways, it can be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, microprocessors or controllers from any desired family or manufacturer. For example, the processing system 602 can be implemented as one or more than one processing core. In another example, the processing system 602 can comprise one or more than one separate microprocessor. In yet another example embodiment, the processing system 602 can comprise an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that provides specific functionality. In yet another example, the processing system 602 provides specific functionality by using an ASIC and by executing computer-executable instructions.

The network interface 603 may be implemented by any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB), and/or a PCI express interface. The network interface 603 comprises any one or more of: a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, a modem and/or network interface card to facilitate exchange of data with external machines (e.g., STBs of any kind) via a network 1 10 (e.g., an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL), a telephone line, coaxial cable, a cellular telephone system, etc.).

The communications medium 604 facilitates communication among the hardware components of the server side entity 600. In the example of FIG. 6, the communications medium 604 facilitates communication among the storage 601 , the processing system 602, and the network interface 603. The communications medium 604 can be implemented in various ways. For example, the communications medium 604 can comprise a PCI bus, a PCI Express bus, an accelerated graphics port (AGP) bus, a serial Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) interconnect, a parallel ATA interconnect, a Fiber Channel interconnect, a USB bus, a small Computing system Interface (SCSI) interface, or any other type of communication medium or any connection medium that could connect to an external storage.

According to a further aspect of the embodiments, there is provided a computer program product, which comprises the instructions for implementing processes of any of Fig. 2-4 as described above.

According to a still further aspect of the embodiments, there is provided a recording medium which stores instructions for implementing processes of any of Fig. 2-4 as described above.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of a method and entity for audience measurement have been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

Throughout the description, embodiments of the method and entity for audience measurement have been presented through flow diagrams. It will be appreciated that the order of transactions and transactions described in these flow diagrams are only intended for illustrative purposes and not intended as a limitation of the present invention. One having ordinary skill in the art would recognize that variations can be made to the flow diagrams without departing from the broader spirit and scope as set forth in the following claims.